Keep the shuttle flying: Fwd: NASA Selects Boulder for Asteroid Redirect Mission

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: March 26, 2015 at 6:59:18 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: NASA Selects Boulder for Asteroid Redirect Mission

March 25, 2015
RELEASE 15-050

NASA Announces Next Steps on Journey to Mars: Progress on Asteroid Initiative
NASA Wednesday announced more details in its plan for its Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), which in the mid-2020s will test a number of new capabilities needed for future human expeditions to deep space, including to Mars. NASA also announced it has increased the detection of near-Earth asteroids by 65 percent since launching its asteroid initiative three years ago.
For ARM, a robotic spacecraft will capture a boulder from the surface of a near-Earth asteroid and move it into a stable orbit around the moon for exploration by astronauts, all in support of advancing the nation's journey to Mars.
"The Asteroid Redirect Mission will provide an initial demonstration of several spaceflight capabilities we will need to send astronauts deeper into space, and eventually, to Mars," said NASA Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot. "The option to retrieve a boulder from an asteroid will have a direct impact on planning for future human missions to deep space and begin a new era of spaceflight."
The agency plans to announce the specific asteroid selected for the mission no earlier than 2019, approximately a year before launching the robotic spacecraft. Before an asteroid is considered a valid candidate for the mission, scientists must first determine its characteristics, in addition to size, such as rotation, shape and precise orbit. NASA has identified three valid candidates for the mission so far: Itokawa, Bennu and 2008 EV5. The agency expects to identify one or two additional candidates each year leading up to the mission.
Following its rendezvous with the target asteroid, the uncrewed ARM spacecraft will deploy robotic arms to capture a boulder from its surface. It then will begin a multi-year journey to redirect the boulder into orbit around the moon.
Throughout its mission, the ARM robotic spacecraft will test a number of capabilities needed for future human missions, including advanced Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP), a valuable capability that converts sunlight to electrical power through solar arrays and then uses the resulting power to propel charged atoms to move a spacecraft. This method of propulsion can move massive cargo very efficiently. While slower than conventional chemical rocket propulsion, SEP-powered spacecraft require significantly less propellant and fewer launches to support human exploration missions, which could reduce costs.
Future SEP-powered spacecraft could pre-position cargo or vehicles for future human missions into deep space, either awaiting crews at Mars or staged around the moon as a waypoint for expeditions to the Red Planet.
ARM's SEP-powered robotic spacecraft will test new trajectory and navigation techniques in deep space, working with the moon's gravity to place the asteroid in a stable lunar orbit called a distant retrograde orbit. This is a suitable staging point for astronauts to rendezvous with a deep space habitat that will carry them to Mars.
Before the piece of the asteroid is moved to lunar orbit, NASA will use the opportunity to test planetary defense techniques to help mitigate potential asteroid impact threats in the future. The experience and knowledge acquired through this operation will help NASA develop options to move an asteroid off an Earth-impacting course, if and when that becomes necessary.
In 2005, NASA's Deep Impact comet science mission tested technology that could assist in changing the course of a near-Earth object using a direct hit with a spacecraft. The ARM robotic spacecraft opens a new and second option for planetary defense using a technique called a gravity tractor. All mass exerts and experiences gravity and, in space, the gravitational attraction even between masses of modest size can significantly affect their motion. This means that by rendezvousing with the asteroid and holding a halo orbit in the appropriate direction, the ARM robotic spacecraft can slowly pull the asteroid without touching it. The effectiveness of this maneuver is increased, moreover, if mass is moved from the asteroid to the spacecraft by the capture of a boulder.
It will take approximately six years for the ARM robotic spacecraft to move the asteroid mass into lunar orbit. In the mid-2020s, NASA's Orion spacecraft will launch on the agency's Space Launch System rocket, carrying astronauts on a mission to rendezvous with and explore the asteroid mass. The current concept for the crewed mission component of ARM is a two-astronaut, 24-25 day mission.
This crewed mission will further test many capabilities needed to advance human spaceflight for deep space missions to Mars and elsewhere, including new sensor technologies and a docking system that will connect Orion to the robotic spacecraft carrying the asteroid mass. Astronauts will conduct spacewalks outside Orion to study and collect samples of the asteroid boulder wearing new spacesuits designed for deep space missions.
Collecting these samples will help astronauts and mission managers determine how best to secure and safely return samples from future Mars missions. And, because asteroids are made of remnants from the formation of the solar system, the returned samples could provide valuable data for scientific research or commercial entities interested in asteroid mining as a future resources.
In 2012, the president's NASA budget included, and Congress authorized, $20.4 million for an expanded NASA Near-Earth Object (NEO) Observations Program, increasing the resources for this critical program from the $4 million per year it had received since the 1990s. The program was again expanded in fiscal year 2014, with a budget of $40.5 million. NASA is asking Congress for $50 million for this important work in the 2016 budget.
"Asteroids are a hot topic," said Jim Green, director of NASA Planetary Science. "Not just because they could pose a threat to Earth, but also for their scientific value and NASA's planned mission to one as a stepping stone to Mars."
NASA has identified more than 12,000 NEOs to date, including 96 percent of near-Earth asteroids larger than 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) in size. NASA has not detected any objects of this size that pose an impact hazard to Earth in the next 100 years. Smaller asteroids do pass near Earth, however, and some could pose an impact threat. In 2011, 893 near-Earth asteroids were found. In 2014, that number was increased to 1,472.
In addition to NASA's ongoing work detecting and cataloging asteroids, the agency has engaged the public in the hunt for these space rocks through the agency's Asteroid Grand Challenge activities, including prize competitions. During the recent South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, the agency announced the release of a software application based on an algorithm created by a NASA challenge that has the potential to increase the number of new asteroid discoveries by amateur astronomers.
More information about the Asteroid Redirect Mission, visit:
/asteroidinitiative
-end-
David E. Steitz
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1730
david.steitz@nasa.gov

NASA Selects Boulder Option for Asteroid Redirect Mission
by Jeff Foust — March 25, 2015
Once the boulder is secured, the Capture and Restraint System legs will provide a mechanical push off that will separate the boulder from the surface and provide an initial ascent without the use of thrusters to limit the amount of debris created. Credit: NASA
WASHINGTON — NASA has selected an option for its Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) where a robotic spacecraft will grab a boulder from the surface of a larger asteroid, agency officials announced March 25.
NASA Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot told reporters in a teleconference that he selected what the agency had been calling Option B for the robotic element of ARM in large part because it offered more choices in what object to bring back to lunar orbit to be visited by astronauts.
"From what we know of the asteroids we've been to, they have boulders on the surface," allowing a visiting spacecraft to choose which one to grab, he said. "I'm going to have multiple targets when I get there. That's what it boils down to."
Under Option B, a robotic spacecraft will travel to an asteroid several hundred meters in diameter and grab a boulder up to four meters across from its surface. The robotic spacecraft would then return the asteroid into a distant retrograde lunar orbit. An Orion spacecraft, with two astronauts on board, would then fly to the asteroid to collect samples for return to Earth.
Option B won out over the original ARM concept, known as Option A, where a robotic spacecraft would redirect an entire asteroid no more than ten meters across into a lunar orbit. NASA had planned to select between the two options last December, but postponed the decision in order to perform additional studies on the concepts.
Lightfoot said that in addition to the greater choice in targets, Option B also offered more technologies that could be applied to future exploration missions, including the ability to perform a soft landing on the asteroid and mechanisms for grappling the boulder. "Those are the kinds of things we know we need when we go to another planetary body," he said.
Lightfoot added that it was harder to identify and characterize targets for Option A, given the difficulty in finding asteroids that small. "It gave us a little pause," he said. "It was the risk of having a target that I was comfortable with that we would be able to get to. It's a one-shot deal."
Option B costs about $100 million more than Option A, Lightfoot said, the same cost difference that he announced in December. However, he added that Option B was still able, at least in this early planning phase, to fit with a cost cap of $1.25 billion, excluding launch vehicle, for the robotic part of ARM.
NASA has yet to select a target for ARM, but is currently using for planning purposes a near Earth asteroid named 2008 EV5. That asteroid, about 400 meters across, has been previously proposed as a target for robotic asteroid sample returns, including a concept called MarcoPolo-R that was a finalist in the European Space Agency's Cosmic Vision M3 competition in 2014, losing to an exoplanet science mission.
The notional schedule for ARM calls for launching the robotic mission in December 2020, arriving at the target asteroid about two years later. Lightfoot said the decision on the target asteroid could be deferred to as late as 2019, allowing NASA's near Earth object search program additional time to find alternative targets.
Once at the asteroid, the spacecraft would spend as long as 400 days in the vicinity of the asteroid, grabbing a boulder and performing other studies. That includes tests of a technique called a "gravity tractor," where the spacecraft's gravity adjusts the trajectory of the asteroid slightly, a technique that has been proposed as a way of deflecting potentially hazardous asteroids.
The robotic spacecraft would then leave the asteroid, returning the boulder to lunar orbit by late 2025. A crewed expedition to the boulder would follow on a mission some time after Exploration Mission 2 (EM-2), the first crewed Space Launch System/Orion mission currently planned for 2021. EM-2, Lightfoot said, would serve as practice for that later asteroid mission, flying to that same distant retrograde orbit.
With ARM having completed its mission concept review, it now moves into a planning phase known as Phase A in NASA program management parlance. "It's really a refinement phase," he said. That work will include development of better estimates of the cost and schedule for the mission.
Phase A work also includes an acquisition strategy meeting in July to decide how to procure key elements of the mission. "That's the next big milestone coming up," Lightfoot said. He noted that there appeared to be more commercial interest, in the form of supplying spacecraft components and technologies, in Option B.
Lightfoot emphasized that ARM, which to date has enjoyed only lukewarm support, at best, from the space community, is intended to be a key step in the agency's long-term plans to send humans to Mars. "It's bringing together the best of NASA's human exploration, science portfolio, and technology portfolio," he said. "It really gives an opportunity to demonstrate the capabilities we're going to need for future human missions beyond low Earth orbit and ultimately to Mars."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=F6xJ_81TzBg

© 2015 SpaceNews, Inc. All rights reserved.

Meet the Leading Space Rock Target for NASA's Asteroid-Capture Mission
by Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | March 26, 2015 07:00am ET

A shape model of the near-Earth asteroid 2008 EV5, which is the leading target for NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission.
Credit: Courtesy Caltech, Arecibo Observatory, and NASA/JPL View full size image
The big asteroid 2008 EV5 may end up giving a piece of itself in the name of science and exploration.
NASA intends to pluck a boulder off a near-Earth asteroid and haul it into orbit around the moon, where astronauts could visit and study the rock beginning in 2025. Agency officials haven't decided upon the target asteroid yet, but the leading contender at the moment is the 1,300-foot-wide (400 meters) 2008 EV5.
While 2008 EV5 has never been visited by a spacecraft, it has been observed extensively using infrared telescopes and planetary radars, such as the dishes at NASA's Goldstone facility in California and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, NASA officials said. [NASA's Asteroid-Capture Mission in Pictures]
"Its orbit is very well known," Lindley Johnson, program executive of NASA's Near Earth Object Program, told reporters during a news conference on Wednesday (March 25). "We have a very good idea of its size, shape, its spin dynamics and the potential existence for the right-sized boulders on the surface."
The skinny on 2008 EV5
Radar images of the asteroid 2008 EV5 obtained in December 2008 using the dishes at NASA's Goldstone facility in California and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
Credit: Courtesy Caltech, Arecibo Observatory, and NASA/JPL
View full size image
As its name suggests, 2008 EV5 was discovered in 2008, by the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona. The asteroid lies slightly closer to the sun than Earth does, taking 343 days to complete one orbit around our star.
2008 EV5 is roughly spherical, though it does possess an equatorial ridge that lends the space rock a distinctly muffin-like aspect. The asteroid also features a 500-foot-wide (150 m) concavity that is most likely an impact crater, according to a 2011 paper in the journal Icarus led by Michael Busch of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institue in Mountain View, California.
The observations of Busch and his team — made in December 2008 using Goldstone, Arecibo and the Very Long Baseline Array in New Mexico — suggest that 2008 EV5 should have plenty of boulders for a visiting probe to choose from.
"Our highest-resolution radar images of EV5 have resolution ~7.5 m. At that resolution, we see several blocks/boulders that we didn't resolve. So we know that there are < 10 m boulders on EV5's surface," said Busch, who was based at UCLA at the time of the study.
"Based on the radar scattering properties of EV5's surface, we also know that there are numerous ~10 cm cobbles," Busch told Space.com via email. "On all asteroid surfaces that have been observed by spacecraft, where there are large blocks and small cobbles, there are also boulders of intermediate sizes. So we infer that there are many boulders on EV5 in the few-meter size range that the ARM spacecraft would be able to return from the asteroid to Earth-moon space."
2008 EV5 is a Type C, or carbonaceous, asteroid, Johnson said. Such space rocks — the most common type in the solar system — are very dark, generally reflecting just 3 to 9 percent of the sunlight that hits them.
Carbonaceous asteroids generally harbor significant amounts of water, in the form of hydrated minerals. Because water can be split into hydrogen and oxygen, the constituents of rocket fuel, the asteroid-mining firm Planetary Resources regards Type C asteroids as the best initial targets for resource exploitation.

Still just a candidate
As currently envisioned, NASA's $1.25 billion Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) would launch a robotic probe toward a space rock in December 2020. The craft would rendezvous with the asteroid in 2022, grab a boulder, and then spend 215 to 400 days circling the larger object to test asteroid-deflecting "gravity tractor" strategies.
The probe would then lug the boulder to lunar orbit by late 2025, at which point it could be visited by astronauts using NASA's Orion capsule and Space Launch System megarocket.
While 2008 EV5 is the leading asteroid target at the moment, it's not the only one. Two other space rocks — Itokawa and Bennu, both of which are about 1,640 feet (500 m) wide — are also possibilities, and NASA officials expect to identify one or two additional viable candidates per year leading up to launch.
"We don't have to make a decision on what asteroid we're going to until roughly a year before the launch, so somewhere in 2019," said NASA Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot.

For Asteroid-Capture Mission, NASA Picks 'Option B' for Boulder
by Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | March 25, 2015 04:37pm ET

NASA's bold asteroid-capture mission will pluck a boulder off a big space rock rather than grab an entire near-Earth object, agency officials announced today (March 25).
NASA intends to drag the boulder to lunar orbit, where astronauts will visit it beginning in 2025. The space agency decided on the boulder snatch — "Option B," as opposed to the whole-asteroid "Option A" — Tuesday (March 24) during the mission concept review of the asteroid-redirect effort, NASA Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot told reporters during a teleconference today.
Option B will probably cost about $100 million more than Option A would have, but its advantages are worth the price-tag bump, Lightfoot said. [NASA's Asteroid Capture Mission in Pictures]
NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission aims to capture a boulder from a larger asteroid and park it in orbit around the moon by 2025. NASA announced the selection of this scenario, called "Option B," on March 25, 2015.
Credit: NASA
View full size image
For example, large asteroids are known to harbor multiple boulders, so the mission will have a number of targets to choose from when it gets to the big space rock. Option A is riskier; the capture probe would likely have no recourse if its chosen asteroid proved too large to handle, or otherwise unsuitable.
Option B will also help develop more of the technologies humanity needs to extend its footprint beyond Earth, Lightfoot said.
"We are really trying to demonstrate capabilities that we think we're going to need in taking humans further into space, and ultimately to Mars," Lightfoot said. "That's what we're looking at."
The asteroid plan
As currently envisioned, NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) will launch a robotic probe in December 2020.
After about two years of spaceflight, the craft will rendezvous with a large near-Earth asteroid. NASA hasn't decided yet which space rock to target, and the decision doesn't have to be made until a year before launch, but the leading contender at the moment is the roughly 1,300-foot-wide (400 meters) 2008 EV5, agency officials said today.
The capture probe will assess the chosen asteroid's boulders, grab one up to 13 feet (4 m) wide and then retreat to a "halo orbit" around the big space rock. The spacecraft will stay in this orbit for 215 to 400 days, long enough for the boulder-toting probe's subtle gravitational tug to influence the orbit of the larger space rock.
This aspect of the mission should help researchers learn more about how to deflect asteroids that may pose a threat to Earth, Lightfoot said.
"Once we understand we've actually influenced the larger asteroid, then that gives us an idea — OK, how much more do we want to do that, or do we want to start heading back?" he said.
The capture probe will then turn around and head toward lunar orbit, where it should end up by late 2025. Two NASA astronauts will then journey out to meet the robotic spacecraft and the boulder, using the agency's Orion capsule and Space Launch System megarocket, both of which are in development. This manned mission will likely last 24 or 25 days, Lightfoot said.
The cost of the robotic component of ARM — that is, the capture/redirect mission, without any astronaut visits —will be capped at $1.25 billion, not including the launch vehicle.
Getting the show on the road
Now that the mission-concept review is done and NASA has settled on Option B, the next big milestone for ARM is an "acquisition strategy meeting" in July.
"This is where we'll decide how we're going to procure all these systems," Lightfoot said, citing the solar-electric propulsion system that will power the ARM capture probe as one prominent example. "We've got to get those pieces moving."
He's happy that ARM has put the design uncertainty in the rearview mirror.
"Let's get on with it, so we can get this next key step in our journey to Mars moving on," Lightfoot said.

Copyright © 2015 TechMediaNetwork.com All rights reserved.

NASA picks an asteroid rock to pave the road to Mars
By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla (Reuters) - A NASA robot ship will pluck a large boulder off an asteroid and sling it around the moon, becoming an ad hoc destination to prepare for future human missions to Mars, the U.S. space agency said on Wednesday.
The so-called Asteroid Redirect Mission is estimated to cost about $1.25 billion not including launch costs and is targeted for liftoff in December 2020. It would be followed five years later by a human expedition to the space rock, a modification of a plan proposed by President Barack Obama in 2010.
NASA also considered bagging a smaller asteroid and relocating the entire body into a high orbit around the moon.
After extensive studies, NASA opted to collect and move a boulder, a mission that will cost about $100 million more, but which better prepares the agency for the ultimate goal of landing astronauts on Mars.
"They're the kind of things that we know we're going to need when we go to another planetary body," NASA Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot told reporters on a conference call.
NASA plans to study the asteroid for about a year and test deflection techniques that one day may be necessary to save Earth from a potentially catastrophic collision. An asteroid or comet smashed into the planet about 65 million years ago, leading to climate changes that killed off dinosaurs and most other life on Earth then.
So far, NASA has three candidate asteroids, but does not expect to make a decision about where to fly before 2019.
The mission involves flying a robotic spacecraft, powered by solar electric propulsion, to an asteroid for an extensive survey. Once a target boulder was selected, the probe would hover down toward the surface and deploy a pair of robot arms to grab hold of a 6.5- to 13-foot (2- to 4 meter) wide boulder.
"I'm going to have multiple targets ... We can assess which one we want to go after and I then have three- to five tries to get it, or I can move on to a different one," Lightfoot said.
The captured boulder, which would remain attached to the probe, would then be nudged into an orbit circling high around the moon, a maneuver expected to take about six years.
The probe would include a docking ring so a NASA Orion spaceship, carrying two astronauts, could reach the asteroid, a mission targeted for around 2025.
(Editing by Grant McCool)

Copyright © 2015 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.