A conceptual design of a comet explorer performing both penetrating and surface roving missions

Exploration for comet and asteroid holds a critical position to study the origin of the earth and the solar system. Due to the low gravity situation, it is difficult to send a rover onto the surface of those celestial bodies. This paper gives a preliminary design for penetrating and surface roving system for a proposed comet exploration mission. The system is constituted by two parts: a Boost Vehicle with a surface robotic rover contained, and a Penetration Vehicle with deployable structure. The assembly will be carried by the main spacecraft to execute a y-by maneuver towards the target comet. System compositions, possible payloads, feasibility trade-offs and initial analyses are also presented in the paper with owcharts and simulations. The paper finishes with the scenario of a typical task process for the assembly.