Responding to potential asteroid redirect mission targets
NASA
is currently developing an Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) that will identify,
capture, and then redirect the asteroid somewhere else. ARM will use solar
electric propulsion and the Space Launch system. The asteroids will be captured
by the men in the Orion spacecraft and then examined. After the examination,
they will be redirected to orbit the Earth’s moon in order to investigate the
asteroid more in the future. There are not many known candidates for ARM
because most are too large to be redirected by a spacecraft. Paul Chodas, a
senior scientist for Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, said that the ideal size of an asteroid that they are looking for
is about 40 ft in diameter. The problem is that this is very small for an
asteroid, therefore it is very difficult for even the most powerful telescopes
to detect the asteroid. The best time to detect an asteroid is when it is near
Earth.
Asteroids are found by scientists
who scan the skies looking for star-like objects that move slightly every hour.
Asteroid surveys find hundreds of moving objects, but only a small percentage of
these objects are new discoveries. After they are found, the coordinates of the
moving object are sent to the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
It is there where they determine if it is already an existing asteroid or not.
Then the information on the asteroid is published with data about its orbit and
brightness.
Sources:
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