NASA's ambitious mission of capturing an asteroid has been modified significantly since the agency revealed its existence two years earlier. Rather than capturing a whole asteroid and bringing it over to a lunar orbit, the asteroid redirect mission of NASA will acquire just a boulder from the asteroid's surface, NASA announced.
The mission, which was expected to consume six years the most, centers on its launch schedule on 2020 in an unmanned spacecraft set to arrive in 2022 at the asteroid. After an approximate of 215 to 400 days, the spacecraft will grab a boulder with the use of a robot and transport it to circum-travel the Moon. As soon as the object is positioned in place by the year 2025, another crewed mission will be launched for another 25 days in space.
Robert Lightfoot, NASA Associate Administrator, said that retrieving a boulder is less risky than getting hold of an entire asteroid, the Space wrote. This plan, also, costs around $100 million cheaper than transporting the entire asteroid. Several technologies will be put to test, including mechanisms for docking the Orion crew vehicle towards the asteroidal spacecraft, advanced sensors, and spacesuits designed for deep space.
The original mission was launched in April of 2013, aimed at dragging small, intact space rocks to an orbit that circum-travels the moon. The plan was for it to be visited by the observing astronauts in 2021. However, NASA officials revealed March 25 that this plan will be changed to just plucking a boulder off from a gigantic asteroid. The manned inspection will then take place in 2025.