The Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) may just save the human race from destruction, and NASA is willing to pay for ideas on how to make that happen. NASA released a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) on Friday 21 March, calling for ideas on how to redirect an asteroid heading toward the Earth.
Ideas are being accepted for a wide variety of ideas, including systems capable of capturing an asteroid. Smaller developments toward asteroid avoidance will also be rewarded by the space agency. NASA is looking for advances in rendezvous sensors that could assist in such a mission.
Awards are also planned for adaptations of current commercial spacecraft to the Asteroid Redirect Mission. Current commercial launch vehicles are only capable of reaching low-Earth orbit. Any private space company hoping to win a prize here will need to reach far beyond the orbit of the Moon.
Hitching a ride aboard a future crewed mission to an asteroid is another opportunity NASA would like to see explored.
"As NASA continues to make great progress refining our mission concepts, we're reaching out to seek new and innovative ideas as we extend the frontier of space exploration. To reach Mars, we'll rely on new technologies and advanced capabilities proven through the Asteroid Initiative. We're looking forward to exciting ideas from outside NASA as well to help realize that vision," William Gerstenmaier of NASA said.
The Asteroid Redirect Mission is part of NASA's Asteroid Grand Challenge, aimed at protecting Earth from interlopers from outer space. The program has three main components to capture and sample an asteroid. First, mission managers need to identify a target asteroid for exploration. Next, a robotic mission must be launched to that asteroid, take hold of the space rock and drag it to orbit around the Moon. The third part of the challenge is sending a human crew to the captured asteroid, and sampling the giant rock during a human space walk. Those samples and the crew would then return to the Earth.
Up to 25 proposals would be selected by the space agency for further development. Further development will then be supported with up to a total of six million dollars in funding from the program. Final delivery of the terms of the contract must be complete by the end of 2014.
Submissions may not have any connection with China, according to the terms of the challenge.
"Proposals must not include bilateral participation, collaboration, or coordination with China or any Chinese-owned company or entity, whether funded or performed under a no-exchange-of funds arrangement," reads the challenge.
Each of these proposals must be submitted to the space agency by May 5th. More information may be found in the announcement of the awards.
