SPIN STATE AND MOMENT OF INERTIA CHARACTERIZATION OF 4179 TOUTATIS

The 4.5 km long near-Earth asteroid 4179 Toutatis has made close Earth flybys approximately every four years between 1992 and 2012, and has been observed with high-resolution radar imaging during each approach. Its most recent Earth flyby in 2012 December was observed extensively at the Goldstone and Very Large Array radar telescopes. In this paper, Toutatis' spin state dynamics are estimated from observations of five flybys between 1992 and 2008. Observations were used to fit Toutatis' spin state dynamics in a least-squares sense, with the solar and terrestrial tidal torques incorporated in the dynamical model. The estimated parameters are Toutatis' Euler angles, angular velocity, moments of inertia, and the center-of-mass-center-of-figure offset. The spin state dynamics as well as the uncertainties of the Euler angles and angular velocity of the converged solution are then propagated to 2012 December in order to compare the dynamical model to the most recent Toutatis observations. The same technique of rotational dynamics estimation can be applied to any other tumbling body, given sufficiently accurate observations.