Obama to fund $100 million NASA project to lasso asteroid and move it closer to the moon for astronauts to explore in 2021
NASA is planning for a robotic
spaceship to lasso a small asteroid and park it near the moon for
astronauts to explore, a top senator revealed Friday.
The
robotic ship would capture the 500-ton 25-foot asteroid in 2019. Then
using an Orion space capsule, now being developed, a crew of about four
astronauts would nuzzle up next to the rock in 2021 for spacewalking
exploration, according to a government document obtained by The
Associated Press.
Sen. Bill
Nelson, D-Fla., said the plan would speed up by four years the existing
mission to land astronauts on an asteroid by bringing the space rock
closer to Earth.
Exploration: Using an Orion space capsule,
pictured, a crew of about four astronauts would nuzzle up next to the
rock in 2021 for spacewalking exploration
Nelson, who is chairman of the
Senate science and space subcommittee, said on Friday that President
Barack Obama is putting $100 million in planning money for the
accelerated asteroid mission in the 2014 budget that comes out next
week.
The Democratic Senator is also a former astronaut, he spent six days orbiting the earth in 1986 aboard the shuttle Columbia.
The money would be used to find the right small asteroid.
'It really is a clever
concept,' Nelson said in a press conference in Orlando. 'Go find your
ideal candidate for an asteroid. Go get it robotically and bring it
back.
'While there are thousands of
asteroids that size out there, finding the right one that comes by Earth
at just the right time to be captured will not be easy, said Donald
Yeomans, who heads NASA's Near Earth Object program that monitors
close-by asteroids.
He said once a suitable rock is found
it would be captured with the space equivalent of 'a baggie with a
drawstring. You bag it. You attach the solar propulsion module to
de-spin it and bring it back to where you want it.'
How to catch an asteroid: This graphic shows how
the projected asteroid-catching spacecraft might look. The 18-ton probe
would catch a 500-ton space rock in a giant, draw-string bag
Yeomans
said a 25-foot asteroid is no threat to Earth because it would burn up
should it inadvertently enter Earth's atmosphere. The mission as Nelson
described is perfectly safe, he said.
Nelson
said this would help NASA develop the capability to nudge away a
dangerous asteroid if one headed to Earth in the future. It also would
be training for a future mission to send astronauts to Mars in the
2030s, he said.
The
government document said the mission, with no price tag at the moment,
would inspire because it 'will send humans farther than they have ever
been before.'
The mission was first suggested last year by space experts at the California Institute of Technology.
Projected
to cost $2.65billion in
total and last ten years, the project has found favor with the Obama
administration, which has already announced a goal of sending
astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025.
Researchers from CalTech's Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) detailed the plan in a paper published last spring.
'The
idea of exploiting the natural resources of asteroids dates back over a
hundred years, but only now has the technology become available to make
this idea a reality,' the report says.
The
KISS feasibility study suggests that bringing a 500-ton asteroid closer
to Earth would give astronaut crews a 'unique, meaningful and
affordable' destination for the next decade.
Schematic: Researchers from CalTech's Keck
Institute for Space Studies (KISS) detailed the plan in a paper
published last spring, but Nasa is now reportedly seeking funding to
execute it
It adds: 'Placing an NEA [Near Earth
Asteroid] in lunar orbit would provide a new capability for human
exploration not seen since Apollo. Such an achievement has the potential
to inspire a nation.
'It would be mankind’s first attempt at modifying the heavens to enable the permanent settlement of humans in space.'
The
report outlines an entirely robotic mission to locate and capture a
Near Earth Asteroid (NEA), with a diameter of about seven meters and a
mass of around 500,000kg.
It
is hoped such a modestly sized space rock may contain up to 100 tons of
water, 100 tons of carbon rich compounds, 90 tons of metals and 200
tons of silicates.
An
18-ton probe would be launched on an Atlas V rocket and use the Moon's
gravity to slingshot itself towards its target in interplanetary space.
Once
there, the spacecraft would deploy a massive inflatable bag to envelop
the asteroid - maneuvering to stabilize against any tumble or rotation -
then 'multiple "draw strings" would cinch-close the opening of the bag
and also cinch-tight against the bulk material,' the report says.
The proposed timeline for capturing the
asteroid: Projected to cost $2.65 billion in total and last ten years,
the project is said to have found favor with the Obama administration
It
adds: 'Due to the residual velocity between the asteroid and the
spacecraft, there would be some “impact” as the asteroid is captured.
'Although,
since the asteroid would be much more massive than the spacecraft, it
is perhaps better to think of this as the asteroid capturing the
spacecraft.
HOW ION THRUSTERS WORK
An ion thruster is a form of electric propulsion used for spacecraft that creates thrust by accelerating ions.
Ion thrusters use beams of ions (electrically charged atoms or molecules) to create thrust in accordance with momentum conservation.
They create very small levels of thrust compared to conventional chemical rockets but achieve very high specific impulse, or propellant mass efficiencies, by accelerating their exhausts to very high speed.
However, ion thrusters carry a fundamental price: the power imparted to the exhaust increases with the square of its velocity while the thrust increases only linearly.
Normal chemical rockets, on the other hand, can provide very high thrust but are limited in total impulse by the small amount of energy that can be stored chemically in the propellants.
Due to their relatively high power needs and the requirement of an environment void of other ionized particles ion thrust propulsion is currently only practical in space.
Ion thrusters use beams of ions (electrically charged atoms or molecules) to create thrust in accordance with momentum conservation.
They create very small levels of thrust compared to conventional chemical rockets but achieve very high specific impulse, or propellant mass efficiencies, by accelerating their exhausts to very high speed.
However, ion thrusters carry a fundamental price: the power imparted to the exhaust increases with the square of its velocity while the thrust increases only linearly.
Normal chemical rockets, on the other hand, can provide very high thrust but are limited in total impulse by the small amount of energy that can be stored chemically in the propellants.
Due to their relatively high power needs and the requirement of an environment void of other ionized particles ion thrust propulsion is currently only practical in space.
'Nevertheless, once the spacecraft and
asteroid are tightly secured together, the spacecraft could then
de-tumble the combination.'
Moving such a huge object using conventional rockets would need an enormous amount of fuel to be carried along with the probe.
So rather than using chemical rockets it would be equipped with a solar powered electric propulsion system.
Such
'ion thrusters', as they are known, work by using electricity generated
by solar panels to accelerate charged particles away from the space
craft, ars technica explains.
Using these, the spacecraft could begin its long track back to the Moon, estimated to take between two and six years.
The
announcement of the $100 million in funding for the project comes three
months after Major-General James Bolden made a cryptic suggestion to a
National Research Council committee on human space flight.
'When
the President announced that an asteroid would be the next destination
for NASA's human spaceflight program, he did not say NASA had to fly all
the way to an asteroid,' he said.
'What matters is the ability to put humans on an asteroid.'