Human missions to asteroids have recently gained great interest due to scientific, exploration, planetary defense and outreach reasons. Scientists Jesus Gil-Fernandez, Raul Cadenas, and Mariella Graziano provide an analysis of human missions to near earth asteroids (NEA's).
This month, NASA has winnowed down a list of a possible 44 asteroids down to meet NASA’s current criteria for a human exploration including that the duration be no longer than 180 days round trip, and that any object visited be larger than 50 meters (164 ft.) across.
Out of the 44 reachable asteroids, 27 are too small, and only 15 have orbits that could be reached sometime from 2020 to 2050. The 180-day mission constraint further cuts the list to three—the 60-meter-dia. 2009 OS5, for which a mission could be launched in March 2020 or March 2036; the 50-meter 1999 AO10, with a prospective launch date in September 2025; and the 100-meter 2003 SM84, with a possible launch in 2046, reports Aviation Week.
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