NASA Advisory Council Wants to Cancel Asteroid Redirect Mission and Send it to Phobos Instead
NAC Adopts Finding To Redirect the Asteroid Redirect Mission — to Mars, SpacePolicyOnline
“The NASA Advisory Council (NAC) today unanimously adopted a finding that it thinks NASA should change the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) into a mission that would go all the way to Mars and thus be more closely aligned with the goal of sending humans there. NAC chairman Steve Squyres stressed that it is a finding, not a recommendation, and requires no action from NASA. NASA’s existing concept for ARM responds to Obama Administration policy and NAC recommendations at odds with Administration policy have little value, he explained, since NASA must implement what it is told to do.”
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Three cheers for common sense!
YES!! 🙂
there are many options to an asteroid
http://www.nasa.gov/sites/d…
http://yellowdragonblog.com…
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archiv…
Deimos is a better bet, it is in a higher orbit so ARM could bring back a larger boulder in less time
Finally– Hope this idea catches on! I’m assuming they mean a robotic mission, but the little space geek kid in me is hoping they mean a crewed one. 🙂
It’s a good start, anyway.
So, if I’m reading this right, EM-2 is going back to a EML2 test flight and the ARM budget is being redirected to a future Phobos mission. I hope that I’m right because trying to send EM-2 to Phobos will, optimistically, end in a costly embarrassment.
I thinks that correct,
I have seen papers that talk of co manifested Orion with ARM but both got their separate ways after launch
I wrote a blog post a while back that has the Orion do a Mars fly by without a crew just to see if the spacecraft could really survive that long a trip
most papers I see have ARM bring back a boulder to DRO from Phobos or Deimos
So this would be a mighty SLS mission? Oh joy! 🙁
Any chance of using Falcon Heavy and a fuel depot to create some sort of sustainable infrastructure to Mars?
That isn’t how NASA is planning to do this AFAIK. They’re planning an all-disposable architecture from what I’ve seen. I’m guessing that this is so that they can do a one-off mission to Mars and claim ‘mission accomplished’.
Of course the second SLS mission could be a dynamite robotic mission to thoroughly explore Deimos and Phobos, a sort of Dawn on steroids, orbiting and landing on both, sending samples back to earth. Paving the way for a crewed mission to Phobos.
This is great news, if it pans out. Hopefully this will show that having politicians make engineering decisions or proposing kludge projects that don’t fit into the overall larger goal is and has always been a bad idea.
I’d be happy with going to Phobos instead.
Yes!
I really like this idea. One of the best justifications for ARM was that the tech could be used for a Phobos or Deimos sample return mission. Lets just skip the intermediate step and go straight for a Phobos boulder.
Edit: Also there is the benefit of simulating a Mars mission with the SEP technology. That makes ARM much more useful to getting people to Mars.
Go direct to the following missions:
1) NASA and SpaceX lead the Mission to Mars.
2) DOD and Boeing lead to the Lunar Base Mission.
Space is our future.
That is active planetary defence finished.
ARM never really had anything relevant to planetary defense. A much better test mission would actually change a large asteroid’s orbit. ARM was never going to do anything with an asteroid that could even remotely be considered large.
A gravity tractor demonstration is directly relevant to planetary defense. I don’t think a more relevant demonstration could be made.
As far as I know, ARM was never going to be a gravity tractor demonstration. It’s gone from being a mission where they put an asteroid in a big bag and dragged back to a mission where they decided to grab something smaller by some other means.
What is it that would need to be demonstrated about the gravity tractor? The physics is Isaac Newton and the spacecraft station-keeping requirement doesn’t seem particularly demanding.
Also, doesn’t the tractor need a massive spacecraft ? Tons of Xe, I suppose.
A smaler spacecraft can do the job but takes longer to divert the asteroid.
Start small, get it to work then go increase in size.
Intriguing, but why Phobos as opposed to Deimos? The latter is easier to reach and is a better observation platform from which to conduct low-latency telerobotic exploration of the martian surface. Any plan to access Phobos with a SEP spacecraft should be capable of stopping at Deimos first as the higher priority destination.
If the boulder is to make it back to LDRO in time for EML-1 in 2024/5 then Phobos might be the more time consuming target for SEP(it deeper down in Mars gravity well)
This approach makes a lot more sense. ARRM never garnered much support from all the constituents necessary to ensure sustained funding. A Phobos goal would demonstrate a vehicle capable of efficiently deploying large payloads and exploration support systems in Mars orbit, which is an important first step in establishing the infrastructure needed for sustained human exploration of Mars.
It should, of course, be noted that Phobos and Deimos are — in all likelihood — captured asteroids. And they are certainly “on the way” to Mars. So, a sample return mission to these bodies would not actually be a change in policy. Although deeper in Mars’ gravity well, Phobos is a more interesting target and perhaps has impact features that were caused by Mars ejecta — hence a mission to Phobos might actually accomplish Mars sample return (of a sort). At any event, either target (P/D) would be a very exciting and useful change in the plans for ARM.
Actually the growing consensus is that they were formed after a large impact event. They are not built like asteroids and their chemical composition has too much in common with Mars.
So, it’d be like landing on an asteroid-like body, that’s actually a moon, made of material from the planet it orbits. In which case, such a mission would be like an asteroid visit/moon landing/Mars sample return all rolled into one!
If you really want to stretch this, then an astronaut stepping out on Phobo’s surface would also technically be walking on Martian soil. (although it doesn’t look any redder in images)
Mars Orbit Base Camp ! Phobos First !!
Keith – Cool…! Do you have a good reference for P/D as impact ejecta? All I’ve found on line is on both sides of the question, with no evidence of a consensus.
To the broader point: I agree with SWhiplash — whatever the origins of the two bodies, a substantial robotic mission to P/D (with “boulder return”) would be a real step toward Humans to Mars.
Great idea! This way leads directly to mars!
Great idea! This way leads directly to mars!
IIRC, Phobos and Deimos are so small that they have gravity firmly in the ‘theoretical’ bracket. So, the PSR could reuse the ARM spacecraft bus essentially unmodified and use its hydrazine-fuelled RCS to hover and climb away from the moonlet’s surface. The only significant change would be to replace the capture sack with a sample grappling mechanism of some kind.
There would also be the opportunity to test an SEP flight profile to and from Phobos orbit.
Phobos – 0.0057 m/s2, Deimos – 0.003 m/s2
Pretty leisurely, that’s for sure!
A larger than normal RCS should be able to produce those sorts of acceleration.
Or a pogo stick, almost.
Escape velocity from Phobos or Deimos almost negligible, 11.4 & 5.5 m/s, respectively.
Glad to see the NAC calling out and overruling Bolden/Obama follies
The political administrators don’t know ANYTHING, of course; they can only RESPOND to what seems politically and technically possible, trying to reconcile the politics with what the technical experts (which is us — NASA, its advisers,and the educated public) tell them is practical. We are all in this together, folks ! Just be glad ideological polarization is so much less extreme for us, than for economic and social policy…..
Still have my now considered “vintage” Mars or Bust pin. Maybe its time to dust it off and pin it back on my NASA center access badge.
The status quo ARM is a long-term demonstration of a completely different skillset versus a Phobos visit. In the long term, I believe the ability to retrieve portions of or entire asteroids is far more relevant to what humankind will need if it wants to be a spacefaring species.
Retrieval of resources for utilization near Earth is a space infrastructure research mission. Visiting Phobos is an exploration research mission. Paradoxically, developing near-space infrastructure will most likely get us to Mars more quickly than attempting to go directly from one gravity well to another one.
Yes.
Mars will, at this point, be a flag planting, period. There being no reasonable thing to do once at Mars other than research (not knocking research), a permanent colony there is very unlikely.
We are embarking on another version of Apollo- this time, one with out the money. Or the steroids. It is a slow-motion train wreck, an activity that will play out through the 20s and 30s until we finally put a few very brave people on Mars and bring them home. Then nothing.
And all through the forthcoming 40s, 50s, and 60s we will wistfully look back at the accomplishments and wonder what happened.
Nothing, that’s what.
And finally- maybe!- finally late in the century when resources run out, climate making a mess, and too many god damned people on the planet we will look to the real wealth of the solar system- asteroids, in situ manufacturing, and space habitation.
You read it here first. I’ll be long gone.
Yet the moons of Mars have much in common with asteroids, probably similar resources, are about as easy to reach (comparable DeltaV, & opportunities every 26 months), great scientific interest both for Mars and asteroidal science, and good stepping stones for human exploration.
I wonder what launch vehicle they would use for a Phobos/Deimos mission. With an electric drive, they should be able to visit and get multiple samples from both. Samples from a single site on each moon would not tell the whole story. We know reasonably well that either moon could provide crew shielding for a high Mars orbit survey mission to find the best future landing site.
Having actual samples would probably help answer the continuing questions about the feasibility of extracting water from Phobos or Deimos rock. No one seems worried that we have not yet developed technology to do this in micro-gravity. My money is still on using the abundant ice resources on the Martian surface, with another 150 cubic kilometers of ice just discovered down to at least latitude 30. Doing ice extraction/melting and electrolysis in a gravity field is vastly easier than in microgravity.
If we cannot make propellant from rock in space, we can bring enough bootstrap propellant to Mars to start the surface operation. We will need a propellant depot (with a logistics base) in Mars orbit, no matter where the initial propellant supply comes from. The money to design such depots and prove out propellant transfer methods is being sucked down a certain “financial black hole”.
Not sure about the difficulty of ice extraction in 0g. Take regolith, and warm it in a vessel to ? ~50C. Filter out the dust from the water vapor, and condense it back to ice. Why not?
The PhD mission, as proposed at the very first Case for Mars conference almost 30 years ago. There is, however, no obvious need for a manned component.
I was a young man full of hope 30 years ago.
This is inevitably a slow process. Remember it took a while for Life to crawl out of the Sea and establish itself on the Land. Like that, space settlement is extremely important, but not obviously urgent, considering all our other problems. Keep calm and carry on…. 🙂
A 150 years ago today the civil war ended. America changed for the better.
A little over a 100 years ago the Wright Brothers made the first controlled powered flight. The world would rapidly grow smaller. In less than 40 years our air men would be flying in great air ships all over the world, B 52 Bombers.(correction, I was thinking of the Boeing B-17 flying fortress that first flew in 1937 through WW2) http://www.militaryfactory….
Close to 55 years ago We put the first human into space. Less than ten years later walked on another heavenly body, The Moon.
Today my friends at NASA Watch seem excited that ten or twenty years from now that NASA/public Space might pick a rock off a moon of Mars, using an expendable rocket that will cost billions and billions and leave no affordable sustainable infrastructure in place to create a highway to mars or to the moon. Am I missing something??
Seems many of you at NASA don’t need to go to space. You are already in some kind of alternate universe.
Yep.
Just as in mountain climbing, a base camp on Phobos would make a mission to the surface safer and easier. Crew there would be shielded from about 2/3 the deep space high-energy cosmic ray background, and could operate robotic rovers in real time on the surface. In case of an Apollo 13-style disaster, a proper cache there could allow a crew to survive. Given a base camp on Phobos, like our Antarctic stations, we would be very much closer to being able to mount a safe mission to the surface, and the attraction of going that one further step would become much stronger. Also, Phobos (or Deimos) is fairly likely to have significant ice, which would be of great value.
.
Not trying to be a thorn in your side, but the first powered flight occurred in December 1903, the first flight of the B-52 in April 1952, just over 48 years later. Still it is an important point. I think the primary problem has been our focus on flying missions rather than technology development and reducing the cost of spaceflight. If NACA had set its primary goal in 1912 as crossing the Atlantic in a giant biplane, the B-52 might still be in work.
Oops Wrong Bomber 🙂 meant B-17
http://www.militaryfactory….
34 years<40 from flying bicycle to Boeings flying fortress DAM! What was their secret?
The secret: two world wars. And the secret of initial fast space development: cold war.
Please define that “many of you at NASA don’t need to go to space.” How do arrive at “many”?
It seems they should turn this back into a recommendation and direct it to where they admit it needs to go – 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I think the implication is that a “Recommendation” has legal consequences, and they don’t want to force that. The Administration has to juggle political and fiscal realities against scientific recommendations and technical advice about “rocket realities” from NASA’s experts (who don’t know everything, yet collectively really do understand most of the engineering issues better than anyone else). I think Obama is actually pretty enthusistic, based on his gut instincts, but he does have other important things on his plate.
Hooray !! Let’s hear it for Phobos (& Deimos….) This would combine both the science value of an asteroid mission and a Mars mission (? Were the moons of Mars originally asteroids, captured? Probably not, but they may have some asteroidal material), or else be accreted in place from material left over from Mars (or splashed into Mars orbit by impacts?)
Either way, the moons have science value.
Also, if there is substantial material from Mars in the moons, a sample return from them would be much easier than (& a good preliminary to ) a sample return from the surface.
Using your argument wouldn’t Earth’s Moon provide a lot more varied and closer asteroid material to scientifically analyze?
Nah. The Earth’s moon is supposed to be some mix of proto-earth and giant impactor material, not asteroidal. (Of course asteroids can be made of many different things, but I think the usual meaning is fairly primitive stuff from the early formation of the Solar System, mixed with some fragments of collisions of planetesimals, a few [like Vesta] being remains of differentiated bodies.) Anyhow, the moon is not very relevant to asteroid science.
I think you missed the point. The craters on the Moon, where do you think they came from?
I disagree. The current administration has shown that they are willing to listen to smart experts – case in point, heeding the recommendations of the Augustine Commission. They’ve also shown a willingness to take politically unpopular decisions, now that they won’t be up for reelection again. I’d say the time is just about right for a bold move, so long as it doesn’t require getting more funds out of a deficit- and tax cut-obsessed Congress.
A modest suggestion for a payload to be carried the outbound leg: just take a large, inflatable habitat (say, Bigelow’s latest module at the time) technology demonstration, and monitor the radiation levels, internal pressure, etc.
! ? That is pretty early ! SLS won’t fly till after that. NASA already wants to develop a high-powered SEP system for ARM, and that is most of what we need to build on. An extensive exploration of both Phobos and Deimos, orbiting and landing at several places, and conceivably even sending back samples, would be a huge advance.
SLS is not required
Yeah let’s get on high-powered SEP either way.
Squyres is politically savvy in “finding” versus recommending. The President should be glad to improve the mission he’s been touting, but that would do nothing for him and nothing for the mission. If a presidential candidate were to promote the improvement, on the other hand, that kind of buy-in gives the mission better odds of actually being carried out.
Can someone someone in this agency make a decision and have the leadership and gonads to actually get the job done? Make a decision, already and implement- this hand ringing and second guessing destroys your credibility and effectiveness.
I think there is a difference.
Bush’s plan was large scale and direct. A return to the Moon. But is did not provide the money to make it happen. This just leads to chaos.
Obama, as is his style, chose a more nuanced plan. Build the components incrementally and individually and fund them at a moderate level and find intermediate use for them. Then somewhere down the line, these pieces can be integrated into a functional whole.
The asteroid plan was something that allowed the pieces to be built. I suspect that they would be possibly amenable to the Phobos alternative, if it stays within the budget.
Obama’s plans may be just as much a dead-end as was Bush’s, but it at least tried to face budget reality.
Don’t forget he has had to work within the confines of the economic nuclear catastrophe left to him. We have forgotton what occured.
http://www.ndnmarket.net/wp…
We could hope that a commercial resupply of human crewed space stations at lagrange points and at Phobos and Deimos using SEP in space stages for cargo flights might make a contribution to the industrialization of the inner solar system
Division of the already small space enthusiast community into warring red and blue factions will only further reduce our ability to influence policy. His space advisor was Lori Garver, former executive director of the NSS. Had we spoken with a unified voice, we would have been heard.
Rather than using an “impactor” to nudge an asteroid, I believe the best technology to develop would be to send a lander to the asteroid, with tech to firmly anchor into the solid surface, and with a small rocket or ion propulsion/beam propulsion tech, that can provide accurate timed or vectored thrust to gradually alter the trajectory of the asteroid. If this can be placed at various strategic orbit locations in the Solar System, it would be possible to maneuver this to any Earth crossing asteroid with enough advance warning, so as to protect the Earth. This would be a good application for a dedicated AI system so that transmission time from Earth would not be an issue. An “anchoring system” may only be necessary for asteroids with high spin rates; the larger asteroids, if they have the requisite slow rate of spin, might be adjusted in trajectory without any “anchoring” tech being needed for the lander. (In such cases, microgravity and/or magnetic hold on the surface might be enough to allow the lander to fire timed bursts pushing the lander toward the asteroid surface into the center of gravity, while altering the asteroid trajectory.)