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
|
|
|
|
news links
|
|
Tuesday, March 10
Firefly Delays Alpha Launch Attempt at Vandenberg Due to Sensor Reading
Noozhawk — 7:32 am ET (1132 GMT) Monday’s launch of Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha Flight 7 test flight Monday evening scrubbed
KEYT-TV Santa Barbara, CA — 7:32 am ET (1132 GMT) DoW announces death of USASMDC Soldier
US Army — 7:31 am ET (1131 GMT) Seventh US service member killed is identified as Army Space Brigade sergeant
AP — 7:30 am ET (1130 GMT) A Dark Matter
Business Standard — 7:25 am ET (1125 GMT) |
