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Posted by baalke on October 30, 2006, 7:29 pm
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NASA AWARDS FUNDING FOR POSSIBLE UA-LED ASTEROID SAMPLE-RETURN MISSION
(From Lori Stiles, University Communications, 520-626-4402)
- Monday, October 30, 2006
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Contact Information
Michael Drake 520-621-6962 drake@lpl.arizona.edu
Dante Lauretta 520-626-1138 lauretta@lpl.arizona.edu
Related Web sites
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu
http://discovery.nasa.gov/
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NASA announced today that it has awarded a University of Arizona-led
team
$1.2 million to further develop a proposed Discovery-class mission
called
"OSIRIS."
OSIRIS would return a pristine sample of a scientifically priceless
asteroid to Earth in 2017. Regents' Professor and UA Lunar and
Planetary
Laboratory (LPL) Director Michael Drake is principal investigator for
the
proposed $415 million mission.
Drake and LPL Associate Professor Dante Lauretta, who is OSIRIS deputy
principal investigator, will direct the mission science. LPL will also
provide OSIRIS' cameras. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt,
Md., is responsible for overall mission management. Lockheed Martin
Space
Systems will build the flight system, the sampling mechanism, and the
sample
return capsule. Lockheed also will perform spacecraft operations.
The $1.2 million award is for the next seven months, when the team will
prepare a more detailed engineering study of how it will accomplish
mission
science objectives.
OSIRIS would be the first spacecraft sent to explore a "carbonaceous"
asteroid, a type of asteroid that contains primitive carbon compounds
that
have survived since solar system formation 4.5 billion years ago.
OSIRIS is both a mythological figure and an acronym. "O" stands for the
scientific theme, origins. "SI" is for spectral interpretation, or
taking
images of the asteroid at wavelengths that will reveal its composition.
"RI," or resource identification, is surveying the asteroid for such
useful
resources as water and metals. "S" stands for security, learning how to
predict the detailed motion Earth-approaching asteroids.
OSIRIS of Egyptian mythology is the god of life and fertility, the god
who
taught Egyptians agriculture, Lauretta noted. There's an analogy to the
proposed 21st century space mission, he added. "We're looking at the
kind of
object that we think brought life to Earth, that is, objects that
seeded
Earth with early biomolecules, the precursors of life."
Not only would OSIRIS delve into the evolution of our solar system and
life, it would identify such resources as water, precious metals and
other
materials needed by future human explorers in near-Earth space, Drake
and
Lauretta said.
And, not least, OSIRIS would accurately measure the "Yarkovsky effect"
for
the first time.
Without understanding the Yarkovsky effect -- a force created by the
uneven
solar heating of an asteroid's surface -- humans can't defend Earth
against
potentially catastrophic asteroid impacts. There's no sure way to
predict an
Earth-approaching asteroid's orbit unless you can factor in how the
Yarkovsky effect will change that orbit, Drake and Lauretta said.
Their targeted near-Earth asteroid was discovered in 1999 and is named
RQ36. It is roughly 580 meters in diameter, or about two-fifths of a
mile.
Asteroid RQ36 orbits between about 83 million and 126 million miles
from
the sun, swinging within about 280,000 miles of Earth orbit, or roughly
40,000 miles beyond the moon. The International Astronomical Union's
Minor
Planet Center has officially classified RQ36 as a "potentially
hazardous
asteroid."
Asteroid RQ36 is especially rare because it linked to other asteroids
that
are outgassing volatiles and organic molecules like a comet. Only four
such
comet-like asteroids have been found in the main asteroid belt between
Mars
and Jupiter, Lauretta said.
Asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter are the leftovers
of
terrestrial planet formation. Near-Earth asteroids are fragments of
main
belt asteroids that were sent careening out of the belt in collisions
with
larger asteroids millions of years ago. Those which move into
Earth-approaching orbits present hazards -- hazards that Congress has
mandated that NASA address.
But near-Earth asteroids also present great opportunities, Lauretta
said.
"The analogy is that, much the same way rocks and sediments in a river
bed
reveal information about the type of material found upstream, we can
use
near-Earth objects to discover a great deal about the nature of bodies
found
in the main belt," he said. "That's what we're doing in sampling a
near-Earth object -- we're looking at the rocks that are tumbling in
from
the main asteroid belt, a place that's too expensive to sample with a
Discovery-class mission."
If selected, OSIRIS would launch in fall 2011 and reach Asteroid RQ36
in
February 2013. It would rendezvous with RQ36 for nearly 300 days, using
scanning lidar, an instrument similar to radar but using light instead
of
radio, and LPL-designed cameras to map and photograph the asteroid at
visible and infrared wavelengths.
Before departing no later than December 2013 for its 4-year journey
back to
Earth, OSIRIS would use a robotic arm and the asteroid's weak gravity
to
collect at least 150 grams (about 5 ounces) of primitive asteroid
regolith
(dirt) for analysis by scientists at Lauretta's LPL lab and around the
world. NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston will curate returned
samples.
In a novel arrangement ideal for longer missions, each of OSIRIS'
science
and management teams partner lead senior personnel with mid-career and
early-career team members. Drake is the senior scientist mentoring the
younger Lauretta in directing OSIRIS science, for example. The LPL's
Peter
Smith heads the imaging team that will build OSIRIS' camera system, for
another example. The LPL's Bashar Rizk, Professor Tim Swindle and Carl
Hergenrother are younger or mid-career scientists on Smith's team.
NASA also selected two other proposed new Discovery-class missions, and
three more Discovery-class proposals that would make use of existing
NASA
spacecraft, for concept development funding. The space agency is
expected to
review developed proposals next year and select the final winner, or
winners, from currently competing Discovery class missions in summer
2008.
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