Computing Paths to Asteroids

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Computing Paths to Asteroids Helps Find Future Exploration Opportunities

As left over building blocks of the solar system's formation, asteroids are of significant interest to scientists. Resources, especially water, embedded within asteroids could be of use to astronauts traveling through deep space. Likewise, asteroids could continue to be destinations for robotic and human missions as NASA pioneers deeper into the solar system, to Mars and beyond.

NASA is developing the capabilities needed for astronauts to reach Mars in the 2030s.

To test these new technologies, the agency is planning a mission to identify, capture and redirect an asteroid to a stable orbit around the moon in the 2020s, which astronauts will visit. NASA is studying candidate asteroids for the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM). One of the systems that helps to identify such an asteroid is the Near-Earth Object Human Space Flight Accessible Targets Study (NHATS) developed and maintained at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland

Read more...