NASA To Send Asteroid Boulder Around the Orbit Of The Moon In Preparation For Human Mission To Mars

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) issued a statement regarding future plans of obtaining a large boulder from an asteroid, and hover it around the orbit of the moon. This project, dubbed as the Asteroid Redirect Mission, is in line with the human mission to Mars, so an ad hoc destination can be established. The estimated cause of this mission is about US$1.25 billion ($1.6 billion), excluding the launch costs, and is expected to be launched in December 2020. A space rock mission, proposed by US President Barack Obama in 2010, will follow the said asteroid project.

NASA is also looking at the possibility of plucking a smaller asteroid and transposing it around the higher orbit of the moon. This extended proposal is said to cost another US$100 million but will ultimately prepare the team of astronauts who are set to land in 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 said.

NASA is yet to confirm the exact asteroid to be plucked out for this study, and is not expected to announce a decision before 2019. “We can assess which [boulder] 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 agency plans to study each asteroid for a year, testing for deflection abilities and other characteristics that can help to protect the Earth from future possible collisions. As of this moment, NASA has three candidate asteroids.

The mission will be performed by launching a NASA Orion solar-powered robotic spacecraft with two astronauts that will extensively survey the prospect asteroid. After thorough assessment, the astronauts will attach the probe to the surface of the asteroid and obtain a two- to four-metre wide boulder, using a pair of robot arms. The asteroid boulder will then be moved around an orbit high around the moon, which will take approximately six years to complete, in sync with the target mssion date, which is 2025.

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