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Commercial and US Government Launch Vehicles => ULA - Delta, Atlas, Vulcan => Topic started by: Phillip Clark on 10/12/2014 12:56 pm

Title: Asteroid capture mission (Atlas-5 launch)
Post by: Phillip Clark on 10/12/2014 12:56 pm

I am hoping that I am not duplicating a thread elsewhere on this site ........

The second flight of the SLS is supposed to put a piloted Orion into selenocentric orbit in 2021 or soon thereafter where it will rendezvous with a small captured asteroid.

From what I have read the asteroid capture spacecraft is supposed to be launched on an Atlas-5 in 2015 but I cannot see anything obvious in the Atlas-5 manifest.

I would have expected a lot more hard facts online by now if the capture spacecraft was scheduled for launch within the next year or two ........

Title: Re: Asteroid capture mission (Atlas-5 launch)
Post by: Jim on 10/12/2014 01:17 pm

Quote from: Phillip Clark on 10/12/2014 12:56 pm

I am hoping that I am not duplicating a thread elsewhere on this site ........

The second flight of the SLS is supposed to put a piloted Orion into selenocentric orbit in 2021 or soon thereafter where it will rendezvous with a small captured asteroid.

From what I have read the asteroid capture spacecraft is supposed to be launched on an Atlas-5 in 2015 but I cannot see anything obvious in the Atlas-5 manifest.

I would have expected a lot more hard facts online by now if the capture spacecraft was scheduled for launch within the next year or two ........

No such mission has been started for Atlas V

Title: Re: Asteroid capture mission (Atlas-5 launch)
Post by: Phillip Clark on 10/12/2014 01:58 pm

Thank you Jim!   That means a lot of online information is way, way out of date!

Title: Re: Asteroid capture mission (Atlas-5 launch)
Post by: MP99 on 10/13/2014 08:35 am

Jeff Foust (jeff_foust):
Gates: current thinking is that crewed mission to asteroid would be EM-3 or -4 (not EM-2, the 1st crewed SLS/Orion mission).

http://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/362644534468939776



Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) tweeted at 9:12 PM on Tue, Jul 09, 2013:
Lee: earliest reasonable launch date for robotic asteroid redirect spacecraft is 2019, "and that would be a big push" #targetneo2
(https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/354694599844958209)



Jeff Foust (jeff_foust):
Gerst: EM-2 (first crewed SLS/Orion) mission will not stay on the ground if ARM asteroid is not there by 2021. [and it likely won't]

http://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/456461227439706112



I'm sure I remember a Gerst quote that the target won't be available to visit until at least 2024, but struggling to find that at the moment.

See also http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=31758.300

Cheers, Martin

Title: Re: Asteroid capture mission (Atlas-5 launch)
Post by: ZachS09 on 10/14/2014 11:50 pm

Isn't this "asteroid capture" mission, which is to be launched on an Atlas V, the OSIRIS-REx flight planned for 2016?

Title: Re: Asteroid capture mission (Atlas-5 launch)
Post by: Kryten on 10/15/2014 12:06 am

 Completely different. O-R is to return samples of asteroid material to the earth's surface, the proposed asteroid capture is to move an entire (very small) asteroid into earth orbit.