NASA scales down mission to 'lasso' an entire asteroid
NASA has announced more details about its Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), which no longer includes an attempt to capture an entire asteroid. Instead, an uncrewed spacecraft will travel to one of three candidate asteroids in 2020. When the craft arrives in 2022, it will use robotic arms to pick and secure a small boulder from the asteroid, and will spend a number of years towing the boulder into a stable orbit between the Earth and the Moon.
Humans will visit the boulder in 2025
The space agency plans to send a team of astronauts to study the boulder in 2025 using the Orion capsule, the same spacecraft that should eventually bring the first humans to Mars. They will also be tasked with returning samples to Earth. Asteroids are rocky…
Source:: The Verge
