Asteroid Retrieval Initiative, NASA, Washington, D.C., USA

The Asteroid Retrieval and Utilization (ARU) mission, also known as the Asteroid Initiative, is a potential future space mission proposed by NASA. Still in the early stages of planning and development, the ARU is a mission to bring a small near-Earth asteroid into lunar orbit, where it could be further analyzed both by unmanned craft and by a future manned mission. NASA hopes to complete the mission, which may take anywhere from six to ten years, in time to accomplish its stated goal of landing humans on an asteroid by 2025.

The Asteroid Retrieval and Utilization mission, excluding any manned missions to an asteroid which it may enable, is predicted by a Keck Institute for Space Studies study to cost about $2.6 billion, of which $105 million has been proposed for 2014. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has stated that: "This mission represents an unprecedented technological feat that will lead to new scientific discoveries and technological capabilities and help protect our home planet."

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A one-minute video of Asteroid Redirect Mission highlights featuring concepts of capturing an asteroid by encapsulation and robotically collecting a boulder from its surface.

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This animation illustrates one of two robotic mission concepts under consideration for NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission. In this concept, the Asteroid Redirect Vehicle descends to the surface of a large asteroid and robotically collects a boulder from its surface.

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NASA announced the next step in the plan to retrieve an asteroid boulder from a near-Earth asteroid and redirect it into a stable orbit around the moon to carry out human exploration missions, all in support of advancing the nation's journey to Mars. For NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), a robotic spacecraft will capture a boulder from the surface of an asteroid for exploration by astronauts in the mid-2020s to test a number of new capabilities needed for future human expeditions to deep space, including to Mars. This animation illustrates the crewed part of ARM, showing how astronauts will travel to the asteroid using NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft, investigate the boulder and return a sample of the asteroid back to Earth.

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This concept animation illustrates the robotic segment of NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission. The Asteroid Redirect Vehicle, powered by solar electric propulsion, travels to a large asteroid to robotically collect a boulder from its surface. It then conducts a "gravity tractor" planetary defense demonstration on the asteroid before bringing the captured boulder to a stable orbit around the moon where astronauts can visit, explore, and sample it.

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ESA’s Asteroid Impact Mission, currently under study for launch in 2020 and arrival in 2022, would be humanity’s first probe to a double asteroid system. Targeting an approximately 180-m diameter asteroid – around the same size as the Great Pyramid of Giza – AIM would spend a busy six months gathering data on its surface and inner structure.

It would then perform before-and-after measurements as the NASA-led Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft impacts straight into it, in an attempt to change the asteroid’s orbital period – marking the very first time that humanity shifts a Solar System object in a measurable way. Success would make it possible to consider carrying out such an operation again if an incoming asteroid ever threatened our planet. The two missions combined are called the Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment, or ‘AIDA’ for short.

But why do we need to plan such a ground-breaking experiment? Astrophysicist and Queen guitarist Brian May, ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano, the UK’s Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees and Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield share their own thoughts.

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As part of ESA’s proposed Asteroid Impact Mission would come the Agency’s next landing on a small body since Rosetta’s Philae lander reached 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko in 2014.

In 2022 the Mascot-2 microlander would be deployed from the main AIM spacecraft to touch down on the approximately 170-m diameter ‘Didymoon’, in orbit around the larger 700-m diameter Didymos asteroid.

The 15 kg Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout-2 (Mascot-2) is building on the heritage of DLR’s Mascot-1 already flying on Japan’s Hayabusa-2. Launched in 2014, the latter will land on asteroid Ryugu in 2018.

Mascot-2 would be deployed from AIM at about 5 cm/s, and remain in contact with its mothership as it falls through a new inter-satellite communications system. Didymoon’s gravity levels will only be a few thousandths of Earth’s, so the landing would be relatively gentle, although multiple bounces may take place before it comes to rest.

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) would help AIM to pinpoint its microlander’s resting place from orbit. In case of a landing in a non-illuminated area, a spring-like ‘mobility mechanism’ would let the microlander jump to another location. Onboard GNC ‘guidance navigation and control’ sensors would gather details of the landing both for scientific reasons and to determine the microlander’s orientation for deployment of the solar array to keep it supplied with sufficient power for several weeks of surface operations.

As well as a solar array, AIM would also deploy its low frequency radar LFR instrument, while cameras perform visible and thermal surface imaging. LFR would send radar signals right through the body, to be detected by AIM on Didymoon’s far side, to provide detailed subsurface soundings of an asteroid’s internal structure for the first time ever.

Then Mascot-2 would repeat these measurements after Didymoon has been impacted by the NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) probe, to assess the extent of structural changes induced by this impact event. AIM and DART together are known as the Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment mission.

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This concept animation opens with a rendering of the mission's spacecraft trajectory, rendezvous, and approach to asteroid 2008 EV5. Although the mission's target asteroid won't officially be selected until a year before the robotic spacecraft is launched, 2008 EV5 is used as a reference for mission planning details. The animation concludes with the notional crew operations that will take place after the asteroid boulder is placed in lunar orbit.

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Who knows when a giant asteroid could crash into the planet and kill us all? But one thing's for sure: we'd better have a backup plan. Claire Reilly takes a look at NASA's mission to gently bump those killer asteroids off course and (hopefully) save humankind.

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The first phase of a new asteroid collision model, which shows the processes that begin immediately after an asteroid is hit—processes that occur within fractions of a second.

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The second phase of a new asteroid collision model, which shows the effect gravity has on the pieces that fly off an asteroid’s surface after impact. This phase occurs over many hours.

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NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) will be the first ever space mission to demonstrate asteroid deflection by kinetic impactor on a binary asteroid target: the smaller asteroid of Didymos, called Dimorphos.

The DART demonstration has been carefully designed. The impulse of energy that DART delivers to the Didymos binary asteroid system is low and cannot disrupt the asteroid, and Didymos's orbit does not intersect Earth's at any point in current predictions. Furthermore, the change in Dimorphos's orbit is designed to bring its orbit closer to Didymos. The DART mission is a demonstration of capability to respond to a potential asteroid impact threat, should one ever be discovered.

DART is directed by NASA and undertaken by a team led by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory with support from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Johnson Space Center, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Planetary Defense Coordination Office within NASA's Science Mission Directorate is the lead for planetary defense activities and is sponsoring this mission.

DART is planned to intercept the secondary member of the Near-Earth Asteroid Didymos binary system in September 2022.

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On Nov. 24, 2021, our Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft will lift off on a ten-month journey to crash into a distant asteroid – on purpose.

As a test of NASA's planetary defense technologies, DART will collide with and slightly change the speed of Dimorphos, a small 'moonlet' orbiting the asteroid Didymos. Dimorphos will be over 6 million miles away at the time of impact and does not pose a threat to Earth, either before or after DART's collision. With nearby satellites and Earth-based telescopes, NASA and our international partners will track DART's effect on Dimorphos and use this data to help protect Earth from future asteroid impact threats.

DART's first launch attempt is scheduled for 1:20 a.m. EST (06:20 UTC) on Nov. 24. Launch coverage starts at 12:30 a.m. EST (05:30 UTC) on NASA TV, the NASA app, and @NASA social media.

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The Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft will deliberately crash into a near-Earth asteroid to try and knock it off course. Scientists at NASA and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory hope the DART mission could help us save Earth from a catastrophic impact.

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What questions do you have about NASA’s #DARTMission? Join our experts Tuesday, Nov. 23 at 4 p.m. EST. NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) launches soon on a journey to become the world’s first #PlanetaryDefense test. The spacecraft will intentionally crash itself into an asteroid to see if it can move its motion in space. If it does, this could be proved as a viable way to deflect a threatening asteroid in the future, should one be discovered.

DART is a spacecraft designed to impact an asteroid as a test of technology. DART’s target asteroid is NOT a threat to Earth. This asteroid system is a perfect testing ground to see if intentionally crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid is an effective way to change its course, should an Earth-threatening asteroid be discovered in the future.

Meet the experts:
Dr. Lori Glaze is the Director for NASA’s Planetary Science Missions. Her favorite part about her job is that she gets to learn something new every day. “The solar system is packed with mysteries, and we have an amazing collection of missions that are working together every day to unlock those mysteries.” Outside of work, Dr. Glaze enjoys spending time outdoors with her family and listening to music.

Dr. Nancy Chabot is the DART Coordination Lead at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Her favorite part about her job is working with a team to accomplish more than any one person could do on their own. Outside of work, Dr. Chabot has been learning to cook new recipes.

Lisa Wu is a Mechanical Engineer at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Her favorite part of her job is that she gets to work with space flight hardware every day. She is most looking forward to not only the science we’ll learn from the DART impact, but also demonstrating the new technologies onboard the spacecraft. In her free time, Lisa has been figure skating.

Stephanie L. Smith is the social media lead at NASA headquarters. Her favorite part of the job is using pop culture and plain English to make science and technology meaningful and relatable to as many people as possible. When she's not hosting conversations about smacking into space rocks, you'll probably find her hiking or cooking.

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SpaceX is targeting Tuesday, November 23 for Falcon 9’s launch of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The instantaneous launch window is at 10:21 p.m. PST (6:21 UTC on November 24), and a backup opportunity is available on Wednesday, November 24 at 10:20 p.m. PST (6:20 UTC on November 25).

This will be the third flight for this Falcon 9’s first stage booster, which previously supported launch of Sentinel-6A and a Starlink mission. Following stage separation, Falcon 9’s first stage will land on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship, which will be located in the Pacific Ocean.

DART is humanity’s first planetary defense test mission to see if intentionally crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid is an effective way to change its course, should an Earth-threatening asteroid be discovered in the future.

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NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft was launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, on 24 November 2021, at 06:21 UTC (23 November, at 22:21 local time - PST). The DART mission is NASA’s demonstration of kinetic impactor technology, impacting an asteroid to adjust its speed and path. DART is scheduled to impact the asteroid Dimorphos, from the binary asteroid system Didymos, in October 2022. Following stage separation, Falcon 9’s first stage landed on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship, stationed in the Pacific Ocean. Falcon 9’s first stage (B1063) previously supported the launch of Sentinel-6A and a Starlink mission.

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NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft successfully separated from the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that launched it from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, on 24 November 2021, at 06:21 UTC (23 November, at 22:21 local time – PST). The DART mission is NASA’s demonstration of kinetic impactor technology, impacting an asteroid to adjust its speed and path. DART is scheduled to impact the asteroid Dimorphos, from the binary asteroid system Didymos, in October 2022.

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