Senator: NASA budget proposal to include asteroid retreival mission
Posted: Sat, Apr 6, 2013, 12:03 PM ET (1603 GMT)
A key member of the US Senate said Friday that the White House's 2014 budget proposal due out next week will include funding to begin work on a mission to move a small asteroid into cislunar space. Sen. Bill Nelson, chairman of the space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee, told reporters in Orlando on Friday that the budget proposal, to be publicly released on April 10, will include $100 million to begin study on a concept to send a robotic mission to a very small asteroid and move it to the vicinity of the Moon. A crewed Orion spacecraft, launched on an SLS rocket, would then fly to the asteroid in 2021 to explore it. The mission concept is similar to a study released last year by the Keck Institute of Space Studies, which estimated the cost of the asteroid retrieval mission at $2.6 billion. The funding in the 2014 budget proposal, according to other work, would be spent on searches for candidate asteroids as well as early work on the retrieval spacecraft and its solar electric propulsion system.
A key member of the US Senate said Friday that the White House's 2014 budget proposal due out next week will include funding to begin work on a mission to move a small asteroid into cislunar space. Sen. Bill Nelson, chairman of the space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee, told reporters in Orlando on Friday that the budget proposal, to be publicly released on April 10, will include $100 million to begin study on a concept to send a robotic mission to a very small asteroid and move it to the vicinity of the Moon. A crewed Orion spacecraft, launched on an SLS rocket, would then fly to the asteroid in 2021 to explore it. The mission concept is similar to a study released last year by the Keck Institute of Space Studies, which estimated the cost of the asteroid retrieval mission at $2.6 billion. The funding in the 2014 budget proposal, according to other work, would be spent on searches for candidate asteroids as well as early work on the retrieval spacecraft and its solar electric propulsion system.
Related Links:
| <<previous article | next article>> |
|
news in brief
|
|
NASA IG cites overconfidence and unrealistic schedules for Starliner woes
Posted: Sat, Jul 4 8:11 PM ET (0011 GMT) |
|
news links
|
|
Sunday, July 12
Transcelestial and Warpspace partner on interoperability for LEO satellite communications
Transcelestial — 6:43 pm ET (2243 GMT) Binary Stars and the Origins of Interacting Supernovae
Academia Sinica — 6:42 pm ET (2242 GMT) AAC Clyde Space receives ESA order for airborne radiometer instrument
AAC Clyde Space — 6:41 pm ET (2241 GMT) Voyager Closes Upsized $250 Million Credit Facility
Voyager Space — 6:40 pm ET (2240 GMT) Iridium Completes Acquisition of Aireon
Iridium — 6:39 pm ET (2239 GMT) |
