A study on how an asteroid mission might work has already been made by Lockheed Martin, the company that has been building NASA's Orion space capsule.Next year, NASA would have completely retired its three remaining shuttles, and leave the transportation of crew and cargo to the ISS to the Russians, Japanese and Europeans, until the American commercial ships will be available.
In the meantime, even if Obama has canceled the agency's moon-oriented Constellation program, as part of the new space plan, NASA is still working on the crew-carrying Orion space capsule.
Before NASA had time to announce anything, Lockheed Martin has began looking for ways of making the capsule an Orion Deep Space Vehicle, for more challenging space flights.
The exploration of asteroids, besides its scientific value, is like a rehearsal for the a Mars mission, according to NASA officials, and it could also produce information that could save the planet from an eventual clash with a space rock.
President Barack Obama has set a new goal for NASA – launching a manned mission on an asteroid by 2025, back in April, as this deep space mission would be the next step towards a manned mission to Mars, in the mid 2030's.
For now, specialists are trying to establish what technology and other information are necessary before sending anyone on an asteroid, and also what can we do in case of an impact.
For picking the asteroid for the future mission, the candidates are likely to change very often, as we get more and more information continuously and, like Josh Hopkins, of Lockheed's Human Spaceflight Advanced Programs, said, “if we keep doing sky surveys at the level of effort that we've been doing in the last 10 years, I think the number of targets we can get to with Orion will roughly double.”
Hopkins added that “it's conceivable that there would be a pair of asteroids that a human mission could visit, but … that's not likely near-term.”
He said that a basic human mission would probably take between five and six months and it could bring back nearly 100 kilograms of samples collected from different spots on the rock.
The astronauts would have to drill for samples and they are likely to leave some equipment behind, for other eventual expeditions.
The concept for the asteroid missions is called Plymouth Rock and it combines two modified Orion spaceships, that would have the necessary propulsion, living space and life-support capacity for two astronauts.
It would have a larger space that might also allow a third person on the job, and it would be a perfect vehicle for deep-space operations.
This week, at American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' Space 2010 conference, Josh Hopkins will give details about an early human mission to near-Earth asteroids using Orion spacecraft.
For now he told
SPACE.com that the idea for the mission has been developed since 2007, as it would be a stepping stone for Mars and it could also serve as a mining station for materials like platinum and other metals.
Hopkins, who led the Lockheed study team, said that “we expected asteroid missions to be thoroughly difficult and further in the future, and what we discovered is that they are within reach of the technologies that we're ready to field today, so we could do an asteroid mission within a decade.”
And as Orion is designed for missions far beyond orbit, it already has most of the capabilities needed, added Hopkins.
He precised that all the work that has been done has been entirely funded by Lockheed Martin, and NASA is not involved in any way.
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