Scientists from NASA announced the progress of its Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM); the mission is already in the process of selecting candidate asteroids that would be captured by a robotic spacecraft and would be redirected around the moon.
One of the candidate asteroid being monitiored by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope was 2011 MD. This asteroid measures 20 feet or 6 meters and had a water-like density levels. Scientists believed that the asteroid was 65 percent rock and 35 percent empty. It passed Earth's surface in 2011 at a distance of 12,000 kilometers.
The asteroid-capture mission was part of the greater initiative to send a manned mission to Mars in a few years. The scientists would announce its final choice of the asteroid by 2018 while the robotic spacecraft would be launched to space by 2019.The first concept was to collect a small sample of the asteroid from the open space while the second one was to collect a boulder-sized part of a bigger asteroid.
Both of these concepts, would require the space agency to redirect the asteroid's orbit and integrate it into the moon's orbit. NASA have until end of 2014 to finalize which concept they would choose for the sample collection.
In addition, NASA encouraged the public to participate by sharing their ideas and would award $4.9 million for those who would help in studying and improving the concepts. Research papers and proposals discussing the concepts would be collected by the agency's Broad Agency Announcement. The studies were scheduled to be completed by July. These studies were supposed to help streamline and fine tune the designs for ARM.
"With these system concept studies, we are taking the next steps to develop capabilities needed to send humans deeper into space than ever before, and ultimately to Mars, while testing new techniques to protect Earth from asteroids," said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, in a NASA news release.
