PASADENA (JPL) – NASA is on the hunt for an asteroid to capture with a robotic spacecraft, redirect to a stable orbit around the moon, and send astronauts to study in the 2020s — all on the agency’s human Path to Mars. Agency officials announced on Thursday, June 19, recent progress to identify candidate asteroids for its Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), increase public participation in the search for asteroids, and advance the mission’s design.
NASA plans to launch the ARM robotic spacecraft in 2019 and will make a final choice of the asteroid for the mission about a year before the spacecraft launches. NASA is working on two concepts for the mission: The first is to fully capture a very small asteroid in open space, and the second is to collect a boulder-sized sample off of a much larger asteroid. Both concepts would require redirecting an asteroid less than 32 feet (10 meters) in size into the moon’s orbit. The agency will choose between these two concepts in late 2014 and further refine the mission’s design.
The agency will award a total of $4.9 million for concept studies addressing components of ARM. Proposals for the concept studies were solicited through a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) released in March, and selected in collaboration with NASA’s Space Technology and Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorates. The studies will be completed over a six-month period beginning in July, during which time system concepts and key technologies needed for ARM will be refined and matured. The studies also will include an assessment of the feasibility of potential commercial partners to support the robotic mission.
“With these system concept studies, we are taking the next steps to develop capabilities needed to send humans deeper into space than ever before, and ultimately to Mars, while testing new techniques to protect Earth from asteroids,” said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate.
For more information about the BAA and award recipients, visit:
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope made recent observations of an asteroid designated 2011 MD, which bears the characteristics of a good candidate for the full capture concept. While NASA will continue to look for other candidate asteroids during the next few years as the mission develops, astronomers are making progress to find suitable candidate asteroids for humanity’s next destination into the solar system.
“Observing these elusive remnants that may date from the formation of our solar system as they come close to Earth is expanding our understanding of our world and the space it resides in,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “Closer study of these objects challenges our capabilities for future exploration and will help us test ways to protect our planet from impact. The Spitzer observatory is one of our tools to identify and characterize potential candidate targets for the asteroid mission.”
Analysis of Spitzer’s infrared data shows 2011 MD is roughly 20 feet (6 meters) in size and has a remarkably low density — about the same as water, which supports the analysis of observations taken in 2011.
The asteroid appears to have a structure perhaps resembling a pile of rocks, or a “rubble pile.” Since solid rock is about three times as dense as water, this suggests about two-thirds of the asteroid must be empty space. The research team behind the observation says the asteroid could be a collection of small rocks, held loosely together by gravity, or it may be one solid rock with a surrounding halo of small particles. In both cases, the asteroid mass could be captured by the ARM capture mechanism and redirected into lunar orbit.
The findings based on the Spitzer observation were published Thursday in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. For more information, visit:
To date, nine asteroids have been identified as potential candidates for the mission, having favorable orbits and measuring the right size for the ARM full capture option. With these Spitzer findings on 2011 MD, sizes now have been established for three of the nine candidates. Another asteroid — 2008 HU4 — will pass close enough to Earth in 2016 for interplanetary radar to determine some of its characteristics, such as size, shape and rotation. The other five will not get close enough to be observed again before the final mission selection, but NASA’s Near-Earth Object (NEO) Program is finding several potential candidate asteroids per year. One or two of these get close enough to Earth each year to be well characterized.
Boulders have been directly imaged on all larger asteroids visited by spacecraft so far, making retrieval of a large boulder a viable concept for ARM. During the next few years, NASA expects to add several candidates for this option, including asteroid Bennu, which will be imaged up close by the agency’s Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission in 2018.
NASA’s search for candidate asteroids for ARM is a component of the agency’s existing efforts to identify all NEOs that could pose a threat to the Earth. Some of these NEOs could become candidates for ARM because they are in orbits similar to Earth’s. More than 11,140 NEOs have been discovered as of June 9. Approximately 1,483 of those have been classified as potentially hazardous.
In June 2013, NASA announced an Asteroid Grand Challenge (AGC) to accelerate this observation work through non-traditional collaborations and partnerships. On the first anniversary of the grand challenge this week, NASA officials announced new ways the public can contribute to the Asteroid Grand Challenge, building on the successes of the challenge to date. To that end, NASA will host a two-day virtual workshop — dates to be determined — on emerging opportunities through the grand challenge, in which the public can participate.
“There are great ways for the public to help with our work to identify potentially hazardous asteroids,” said Jason Kessler, program executive for NASA’s Asteroid Grand Challenge. “By tapping into the innovative spirit of people around the world, new public-private partnerships can help make Earth a safer place, and perhaps even provide valuable information about the asteroid that astronauts will visit.”
For more information about the workshop and public opportunities through the grand challenge, visit:
The Asteroid Grand Challenge and Asteroid Redirect Mission comprise NASA’s Asteroid Initiative. Capabilities advanced and tested through the Asteroid Initiative will help astronauts reach Mars in the 2030s. For more information about the Asteroid Initiative and NASA’s human Path to Mars, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/asteroidinitiative
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I love this kinda stuff.
This is the sort of thing science should be focused on. expanding our knowledge of the universe and helping to make our planet a better place. Science has been hijacked by money,politics and ideology.
Near Earth orbit Asteroid exploitation planning shows up as early as 1989 with the highly optimistic Integrated Space Plan from Rockwell….
http://bendhyan.wordpress.com/2013/08/26/rockwell-now-boeing-1989-produced-plan-for-space-exploration-into-the-21st-century-2/
Fail to see the need, other than job justification. We should have been on Mars in the 80s.
Just give Major Kong a lariat and he will steer it home!
Yeeeee haaaaa?
What I truly hate about this asteroid redirect mission is it being driven by NASA being so risk adverse they are unwilling to send humans past near Earth space.
So rather than go to a near Earth asteroid on a six-month mission, they want to bring the astroid into lunar orbit so humans can visit there. More of a protected playground then bold exploration.
..now what could go wrong
Well, hopefully they don’t screw this one up like they screwed up their foray into pro-AGW climate science.
Latitude says:
June 21, 2014 at 5:35 pm
There are going to be mistakes. But we have to make those mistake. We always have made mistakes and yet we advance.
David, letting a three year old drive a car is not a mistake……….
I am sure there are far more worthwhile projects required on the USA’s patch of Earth. By all means gaze and ponder but stop with the wildly expensive manned and unmanned missions.
With the Us economy a true basket case, this is just sheer folly.
So, we are going to take a pile of rocks/gravel and latch onto it — retaining the low-gravity cohesion while changing the directional velocity of the whole (by changing the directional velocity of each piece of rock/gravel, I would suppose) — and drag/push the whole mass into an orbit around a large gravitational mass (the moon) which will be apt to tear it apart before any studying can happen.
What am I missing here?
What’s the point of a manned mission to mars? I would like to understand what a person can do better than these robots. The cost is astronomical.
Heresy, maybe, but I simply don’t get it. I also don’t get NASA’s continued pushing “We are looking for life” meme. They know there is no chance of life on Mars. The idea that colonization of Mars or any other planet makes any sense is silly. You want to waste $, put it into SETI. At least it’s cheaper, and has other information you can get from the big radio telescopes.
Bottom line, we are stuck here on earth. Without violating Einstein’s principles, people will never zip around in Star Trek spaceships to colonize other stars. It’s possible to send a small machine to other stars, probably in the next 10K years or so, that could make planets habitable, or even to then communicate DNA to those planets and create life, but who knows what life will look like 10K years from now. DNA, RNA, the mysteries of life will be unlocked, and we will be monkeys among men.
Just a thought: When you have robotic control of an asteroid – you not only have a new asteroid to study – you also have yourself a new “weapon of mass destruction” to play with!
What happened to Muslim outreach and climate soothsaying?
Will they have enough money left for their primary missions under Obama?
David, a mistake that expands knowledge and advances technology can be an acceptable risk. But we’re talking about the space exploration agency that, 40 years after Apollo,– 40 years of advancements — is no longer capable of putting a man into Low Earth Orbit. For that matter, after 53 years they can’t even launch a man into space in a suborbital flight. (And before anyone asks sarcastically, yes, I do have other constructive suggestions.)
What could POSSIBLY go wrong? LOL
What could go wrong ?
Well, they could try orbiting the Earth, this way they discover the meaning of stability.
Siliceous pumices can have densities quite a bit less than 1 gm/cc — the density of water. So, asteroid 2011 MD need not be a rubble pile to have a low density. It just needs to have contained dissolved gas when molten, and then to have suffered a rapid decompression. It could well be a rubble pile, of course, but need not.
Eb Barbar
“….monkeys among men…?”
For shame, you racist sexist.
Sorry Ed (said Eb)
By my rough calculations a 6 metre diameter asteroid would weight about 100 tonnes if average density is water. So assuming made up of say 10,000 10kg rocks the outer rocks would experience only 10micro newtons of gravitational force. Good luck capturing this asteroid in a net without disturbing it. Surprised that gravitational tidal forces haven’t ripped this apart already. Got to think there are some other forces involved. Maybe magnetic?
don’t we need a way for nasa to transport people first??
What? Are there no rights for asteroids? Capturing and forcing an asteroid into a slave orbit of Earth is so oppressive! /sarc
Seeing as science is settled, at this point what does it matter.
Seriously though, they were asking for it.