Near Earth Asteroid Relocation

[EarthlingX]

Asteroid sample return mission proposal

From Astrobiology Magazine :

Interrogating the Asteroid

Posted: 03/16/10

Based on a NASA Goddard news release

Summary: Researchers have proposed a new sample-return mission to visit the asteroid 1999 RQ36. Such a mission could help us learn how to move an asteroid that's set on a collision course with Earth.

This is an artist's concept of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft taking a sample from asteroid RQ36.
Credit: NASA

This is link to current Goddard News Letter
http://gsfctechnology.gsfc.nasa.gov/new ... urrent.pdf

There are search results for rex on NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

 

[HopDavid]

Re: Asteroid sample return mission proposal

From Astrobiology Magazine :

Interrogating the Asteroid

Posted: 03/16/10

Based on a NASA Goddard news release

Summary: Researchers have proposed a new sample-return mission to visit the asteroid 1999 RQ36. Such a mission could help us learn how to move an asteroid that's set on a collision course with Earth.

This is an artist's concept of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft taking a sample from asteroid RQ36.
Credit: NASA

This is link to current Goddard News Letter
http://gsfctechnology.gsfc.nasa.gov/new ... urrent.pdf

There are search results for rex on NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

I'm delighted to hear OSIRIS is back on track.

The first time it was proposed, I did a painting of the mission.

The Eye of the Falcon is one of the symbols for the Egyptian God Osiris. The falcon design in the painting is also a nod to the Japanese sample return mission Hayabasa, which is Japanese for falcon.

This views the earth orbiting the sun as seen from under the sun's south pole. The larger orbit is the asteroid orbit. I don't recall if they were going to use RQ36 the first time around.

In my view, missions like this are the best use of space program dollars.

 

[EarthlingX]

I checked the rock, and here are some facts and aerobics :

from Wiki : (101955) 1999 RQ36

(101955) 1999 RQ36 is the minor planet designation of an Apollo asteroid discovered by LINEAR in 1999. It has a mean diameter of approximately 510 meters, and has been observed extensively with the Arecibo Observatory Planetary Radar and the Goldstone Deep Space Network ([1][2][3], see also radar astronomy).

Separately, RQ36 has been considered multiple times as the target of spacecraft missions, including OSIRIS, due to the low delta-v required to reach it from Earth orbit.

[1] http://echo.jpl.nasa.gov/~lance/1999RQ36/1999RQ36.html
[2] http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2000DPS....32.0710H
[3] http://arxiv.org/abs/0901.3631

I will, just for fun, try some calculations, please check it :
Volume = (4 x pi x (510 m)^3)/3 = 555 647 209,456 m^3 , or very close mass in water, expressed in t.

If i assume density of 2 kg/l, or 2 t/m^3, it's a bit of orientation, and not too hard calculation ( with not rounded numbers ) :
555 647 209,456 m^3 * 2 t/m^3 = 1 111 294 418,91 t

Now let's get some perspective, like something big :

Wiki : Bulk carrier

A bulk carrier, bulk freighter, or bulker is a merchant ship specially designed to transport unpackaged bulk cargo, such as grains, coal, ore, and cement in its cargo holds. Since the first specialized bulk carrier was built in 1852, economic forces have fueled the development of these ships, causing them to grow in size and sophistication. Today's bulkers are specially designed to maximize capacity, safety, efficiency, and to be able to withstand the rigors of their work.

Today, bulkers make up 40% of the world's merchant fleets and range in size from single-hold mini-bulkers to mammoth ore ships able to carry 365,000 metric tons of deadweight (DWT).

How many of this big ships for one tiny rock ?

1 111 294 418,91 t / 365 000 = 3044,642 ships .

If, for the sake of simplicity i assume 1 week travel time, including loading and unloading, might be possible with bulk carriers, don't know, and
100 ships = 30,44642 weeks, and using 4,5 as weeks/month approximately 6 - 7 months.
10 ships = 304,4642 weeks, 67,6587 months, 5,638225 years ..

Adjust accordingly.

 

[EarthlingX]

Article about the mission from Discovery News, with video :

Asteroid Mission May Offer Clues into Life's Origins

By Irene Klotz | Wed Mar 17, 2010 07:00 AM ET

THE GIST:

* A sample from a pristine asteroid may explain whether the chemistry for life on Earth exists in space.
* The targeted asteroid, RQ36, is a rare, carbon-rich rock.
* RQ36 is on the list of potentially dangerous asteroids, with a slim chance of striking Earth in 160 years.

This asteroid sampler could bring back pristine materials from the early days of the solar system.
University of Arizona/NASA Goddard Flight Center/Lockheed Martin

 

[halman]

For several reasons, I believe that we are going to do things differently in space than we have on Earth. On Earth, the most difficult resource to transport often determines where the processing factory will be. In space, energy will require that most off-planet processing be done where sunlight is uninterrupted, so that the processing equipment does not freeze up. So putting space factories in the same orbit as Earth, just a few degrees ahead, or behind, seems likely. This also will help to reduce congestion in the Earth-Moon system.

Rather than trying to move the whole chunk of material, we would be more likely to cut it up into pieces that we can manage fairly easily, and then put those pieces into transfer orbits to where the processing plant is. We might slap a radio beacon on them, or we might not. They won't be hard to track. At the other end of the pipeline, the pieces are captured, and put into the holding pen.

The processing plant is likely to be quite large, and very massive, so moving it around seems to me to be inefficient. It will almost certainly be cheaper to send the raw materials to it, using Hohmann transfer orbits. A mining ship would be part space tug, part drilling derrick, and part housing complex, so that the crew can stay on board for extended missions, say, a year at a hitch.

Ceramics are becoming a highly versatile field, with new applications being discovered all the time. I foresee the development of foamed ceramic material, reinforced with carbon fibers, which would be excellent for roofing and siding, as it would probably have a life span of over 100 years. Considering that most homes would need to be re-roofed about 5 times in a century, and that a roofing job is running close to 10,000 dollars these days, the ceramic tiles could be very expensive and still be a worthwhile investment for a home owner.

That is but one idea.

 

[tampaDreamer]

The roofing thing probably isnt a good example. As it stands youc an get a metal roof for a few 10's of % more in cost, adn it will last 50 years rather than 15-20. Even 50 years is stretching the limits of human foresight.. no one wants a 100 year roof because we don't live that long, and we definitely don't stay in our houses that long. I think airplane frames or vehicle armor might be a better use as weight is a problem in both those instances. The trick is manufacturing something that large in orbit and getting it down in one piece.

 

[HopDavid]

For several reasons, I believe that we are going to do things differently in space than we have on Earth. On Earth, the most difficult resource to transport often determines where the processing factory will be. In space, energy will require that most off-planet processing be done where sunlight is uninterrupted, so that the processing equipment does not freeze up. So putting space factories in the same orbit as Earth, just a few degrees ahead, or behind, seems likely. This also will help to reduce congestion in the Earth-Moon system.

Unless they were at the sun-earth L4, 5, or 3 points, any objects on earth's orbit would be unstable. All these are too distant from earth. So I don't see a solar orbit, a high earth orbit is preferable.

The moon has a tendency to chawamber most high earth orbits. About the least onerous high earth orbit locations in terms of station keeping expense are the earth-moon Lagrange regions. These locations would only rarely suffer solar eclipes from the earth or moon.

The EML1 region has the advantage of being close to LEO as well as the moon in terms of delta V.

The EML1 region has a 2.4 km/sec advantage over LEO for NEOs, Mars or any other destinations in the solar system.

 

[Boris_Badenov]

The moon has a tendency to chawamber most high earth orbits. .

Say what? :?

 

[HopDavid]

The moon has a tendency to chawamber most high earth orbits. .

Say what? :?

You haven't heard the scholarly term "chawamber"?

The moon's gravity tends to perturb and destabilize high earth orbits.

 

[Boris_Badenov]

You haven't heard the scholarly term "chawamber"?

The moon's gravity tends to perturb and destabilize high earth orbits.

Ummmm, no. I even Googled it to no avails. Does "chawamber" then, mean perturb?

 

[EarthlingX]

I'll just drop this here, for a collection :

SDC : New Spacecraft Discovers Dozens of Asteroids ... Every Day

By SPACE.com Staff
posted: 26 March 2010
11:54 am ET
Editor's note: Due to an error by NASA in a press release, the original version of this story stated that the WISE mission discovered hundreds of asteroids per day. That figure has been amended in this story to reflect the correct tally.

Dozens of asteroids that have been lurking undetected in our solar system are being discovered every day by NASA's newest space telescope, scientists say.
The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope was designed to search for "dark" objects in space, such as brown dwarf stars, vast dust clouds, and yes, asteroids.

The red dot at the center of this image is the first near-Earth asteroid discovered by NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The asteroid appears redder than the rest of the background stars because it is cooler and emits most of its light at longer infrared wavelengths. In visible light, this space rock is very faint and difficult to see. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

Between now and late October, when the mission is slated to end, Wright estimates the observatory will find a hundred thousand asteroids, mostly in the main belt, and hundreds of near Earth objects.

 

[EarthlingX]

More about (101955) 1999 RQ36 :

http://www.physorg.com : Potentially hazardous asteroid might collide with the Earth in 2182

July 27, 2010


These are asteroids and comets visited by spacecraft. Credit: ESA, NASA, JAXA, RAS, JHUAPL, UMD, OSIRIS

The potentially hazardous asteroid, (101955) 1999 RQ36, has a one-in-a-thousand chance of impacting the Earth, and more than half of this probability indicates that this could happen in the year 2182, based on a global study in which Spanish researchers have been involved. Knowing this fact may help design in advance mechanisms aimed at deviating the asteroid's path.

"The total impact probability of asteroid '(101955) 1999 RQ36' can be estimated in 0.00092 -approximately one-in-a-thousand chance-, but what is most surprising is that over half of this chance (0.00054) corresponds to 2182," explains to SINC María Eugenia Sansaturio, co-author of the study and researcher of Universidad de Valladolid (UVA). The research also involved scientists from the University of Pisa (Italy), the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (USA) and INAF-IASF-Rome (Italy).

Scientists have estimated and monitored the potential impacts for this asteroid through 2200 by means of two mathematical models (Monte Carlo Method and line of variations sampling). Thus, the so called Virtual Impactors (VIs) have been searched. VIs are sets of statistical uncertainty leading to collisions with the Earth on different dates of the XXII century. Two VIs appear in 2182 with more than half the chance of impact.

 

[MeteorWayne]

This is an extension of the Milani Paper in Icarus (Vol. 203, pp. 460-471, 2009) mentioned in the 1999 RQ36 thread in SS&A

Edit ( it was actually discussed in a thread about another asteroid.)

Here's a thread in SS&A dedicated to this object:

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=25472

 

[Boris_Badenov]

Bump