Posted on May 3, 2013, at 7:06 am .
By Steven Siceloff
Kennedy Space Center
Kennedy Space Center will have a leading role in NASA’s plans to capture an asteroid and launch astronauts to explore it, the center’s director told employees shortly before the agency’s 2014 budget proposal was released.
“It does everything that needs to be done as far as developing the technologies and the skills that we need for exploration beyond planet Earth,” said Bob Cabana, director of the Florida center. “Testing out our spacecraft on a real mission instead of a pure test flight I think is very exciting. The team here at Kennedy, we’re ready to get on board and make this happen. I’m very excited about this mission.”
Continue reading ‘KSC Has Lead Role in Asteroid Mission’
Posted on April 28, 2013, at 6:10 am .
This artist’s concept from 1978 shows an asteroid retrieval mission. (NASA)
By Michelle K. Dailey
NASA History Office Program
Within NASA’s new FY2014 budget proposal lies a project known as the Asteroid Retrieval and Utilization Mission. This project would be the first to capture a small near-Earth asteroid and safely redirect it to a lunar orbit so that astronauts can visit and explore it. Such a mission would expand scientific knowledge of the origins of both humanity and the universe.
Continue reading ‘The Long Path to Human Asteroid Exploration’
Posted on April 20, 2013, at 5:36 pm .
Dan Leone at Space News has a great update on plans by the B612 Foundation to launch its $450 million Sentinel asteroid-hunting telescope:
B612 plans to launch Sentinel in 2017 or 2018 aboard a Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Falcon 9 rocket, possibly as a secondary payload, according to Troeltzsch.
Continue reading ‘B612 Foundation’s Sentinel Telescope Will Cost $450 Million’
Posted on April 17, 2013, at 6:22 pm .
Even in Meteor Crater, there’s no escape….
Image this scene: you’ve just hiked down to the bottom of Meteor Crater in Arizona on a brisk Spring day. Gray storm clouds hover overhead, raining down large icy particles — not quite snow, but not sleet, either — down on you and the parched desert landscape. As you snap photographs of a spectacular scene that very few people ever get to see, s0mewhere in the back of your mind, you realize that something is missing. But what?
If you guessed a PowerPoint presentation, you’d be right.
Continue reading ‘Planetary Defense Day 3: Of Craters, Geekdom and Science Guys’
Posted on April 17, 2013, at 9:42 am .
Illustration of an asteroid retrieval spacecraft in the process of capturing a 7-m, 500-ton asteroid. (Image Credit: Rick Sternbach / KISS)
Here’s something interesting: the Keck Institute for Space Studies has continued work on the Asteroid Return Mission Study that it published last April. The report is the basis of a new NASA plan to return an asteroid near Earth and send a human crew to explore it.
Continue reading ‘Keck Continues Work on Asteroid Return Mission’
Posted on April 16, 2013, at 6:12 pm .
NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver addresses the Planetary Defense Conference in Flagstaff on April, 15, 2013. (Credit: Eric Dahlstrom)
By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor
NASA will partner with private organizations seeking to catalog and mine asteroids as the space agency undertakes an ambitious effort to retrieve one of these bodies and send astronauts to explore it, Deputy Administrator Lori Garver told planetary scientists on Monday.
“When Planetary Resources was founded a few month ago and following on that Deep Space Industries, I could not have been happier,” Garver said, referring to two asteroid mining companies announced last year. “It’s proving our focus of attention on areas where there is not just U.S. government interest.”
Continue reading ‘Garver: NASA to Seek Private Sector Partnership on Asteroid Retrieval Mission’
Posted on April 16, 2013, at 9:29 am .
Bellevue, Wash., April 16, 2013 (Planetary Resources PR) – Planetary Resources, Inc. announced today that Bechtel has joined their core group of investors and will be a collaborative partner in helping Planetary Resources achieve its long-term mission, which is to mine near-Earth asteroids for raw materials, ranging from elements used in rocket fuel to precious metals, through the development of innovative and cost-effective robotic exploration technologies. Currently, Planetary Resources has multiple contracts to develop miniaturized and responsive technologies with far-reaching applications to space assessment, accessibility and resource recovery.
Continue reading ‘Bechtel Partners with Planetary Resources on Asteroid Mission’
Posted on April 15, 2013, at 5:09 pm .
Editor’s Note: As the Planetary Defense Conference gets underway in Flagstaff, Ariz., NASA reports progress on a sensor designed to detect asteroids and comets.
PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) – An infrared sensor that could improve NASA’s future detecting and tracking of asteroids and comets has passed a critical design test.
The test assessed performance of the Near Earth Object Camera (NEOCam) in an environment that mimicked the temperatures and pressures of deep space. NEOCam is the cornerstone instrument for a proposed new space-based asteroid-hunting telescope. Details of the sensor’s design and capabilities are published in an upcoming edition of the Journal of Optical Engineering.
Continue reading ‘Asteroid Detecting Sensor Passes Critical Design Milestone’
Posted on April 15, 2013, at 8:58 am .
Meteor Crater in Arizona (Credit: Alan Levine)
Hi everyone.
I’ve traded balmy Phoenix for nippy Flagstaff as I have gone from the Space Access Conference to the Planetary Defense 2013 Conference. There was a special public session last night on the February meteor explosion over Russia. The conference gets started this morning and runs through Friday afternoon.
Some big news: Lori Garver is in the house! She’s not on the schedule, but I expect NASA’s deputy administrator will be speaking about NASA’s asteroid retrieval mission at some point today.
I’ll be Tweeting the sessions this week @spacecom.
Posted on April 11, 2013, at 8:26 am .
Illustration of an asteroid retrieval spacecraft in the process of capturing a 7-m, 500-ton asteroid. (Image Credit: Rick Sternbach/KISS)
Washington, DC, April 11, 2013 (NSS PR) – The National Space Society (NSS) applauds the new NASA budget item that would provide close to $100 million for a mission to rendezvous with a small asteroid and move it into orbit around the Moon where it could later be visited by astronauts.
“An asteroid capture mission is a tremendously important mission, and one that could not be more relevant to the challenges our civilization faces today,” said Mark Hopkins, Chairman of the NSS Executive Committee. “Robotic asteroid capture is the first step to exploiting the vast material resources of the solar system for a hopeful and prosperous future for mankind.”
Continue reading ‘National Space Society Applauds NASA Asteroid Capture Plan’
Loading ...