NASA approved an asteroid flight date to capture it

A snapshot of a 2011 MD asteroid taken with a Spitzer telescope. This is one of the candidates for interception. In addition to this asteroid, there are 8 other candidates.

A month and a half ago, NASA published information about its plans for the next 20 years. Among other items, the agency has planned a flight to an asteroid to capture it, and take it to a retrograde lunar orbit.

Yesterday, the asteroid flight plan was confirmed, and the year was named when it was planned to intercept the asteroid with its delivery to the Moon. All this should happen in 2018.
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Rather, in 2018, the asteroid will first be captured by the corresponding spacecraft, and in 2019 this space object (32 meters in diameter, the asteroid of the larger Ramer is still problematic to intercept) will be transported by another spacecraft to the lunar orbit. There are two options so far - either intercepting a small whole asteroid, or breaking off a large enough part of a large asteroid, and further work with the name of this part.

Now there is a collection of ideas about the possible course of the expedition, with technical details. For a successful project, NASA offers a reward of $ 4.9 million.

Already in 2020, the team of astronauts will fly up to this artificial moon satellite, to study the asteroid. The Orion spacecraft is currently being developed, where astronauts will arrive at the object of study. According to scientists, a detailed study of the substance from which the asteroid is composed should reveal to us the past of the solar system, including the formation of the planets and their satellites.

In addition to this plan, there is another one, which consists in sending an automatic station into space to an asteroid in 2016, automatic sampling, and the arrival of the station to Earth in 2023.

We can only wait and hope that the planned missions will be successful.



Via NASA