NASA wants to deflect an asteroid but now it says it will need some help. The plan is part of the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), in which the agency hopes to capture part of an asteroid and drag it back to Earth within the next decade.
From September 2016 until August 2018, the agency will accept proposals from private companies for its ARM Umbrella for Partnerships (ARM-UP) in areas such as partner-provided payloads and experimentation on the asteroid.
NASA’s asteroid capture mission consists of two distinct stages planned for 2021 and 2026 respectively.
During the first stage, called the Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission (ARRM), the agency will send a robotic vessel to a near-Earth asteroid where it will survey the surface in a series of close flybys. After identifying a manageable boulder, the vessel will descend on the asteroid, capture the boulder, lift off, and drag the object back to lunar orbit. However, just before the vessel travels to the Moon, it will perform a “planetary defense demonstration,” in which it will use the gravitational attraction between the asteroid and the spacecraft to gently deflect the asteroid’s trajectory.
Astronauts will travel to the boulder aboard an Orion spacecraft in the second phase, the Asteroid Redirect Crewed Mission (ARCM). In this mission, the crew will collect asteroid samples and return them to Earth for study, which NASA says will mark the single biggest haul of asteroid material ever returned to Earth by a space mission. They hope the material will provide insight into the origin of life of Earth and the potential value of asteroid resources, including water and organic compounds.
NASA’s call for proposals comes as ARM passes its Key Decision Point-B review, a milestone that includes approval for the robotic mission’s content, costs, and schedule.
Although ARM has a practical goal, NASA considers the mission an important step in demonstrating new space technologies — such as a highly advanced solar electric propulsion system — which may one day help astronauts travel to Mars.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.