New Delhi: According to a new report from Newscientist.com, NASA is mulling over a proposal to capture an asteroid and drag it into the moon's orbit.
The report states that researchers with the Keck Institute for Space Studies in California have confirmed the news that NASA is planning to build a robotic spacecraft to grab a small asteroid and place it in high lunar orbit. The entire mission would cost NASA about $2.6 billion. It is expected to be completed by the 2020s.
"For now, NASA's only official plans for human spaceflight involve sending a crewed capsule, called Orion, around the moon. The Obama administration has said it also wants to send astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid. One proposed target, chosen because of its scientific value and favourable launch windows for a rendezvous, is a space rock called 1999 AO10. The mission would take about half a year, exposing astronauts to long-term radiation beyond Earth's protective magnetic field and taking them beyond the reach of any possible rescue," said the report.
The project is believed to need some technical and scientific refinement, says co-leader Louis Friedman of the Planetary Society, but he envisions it as a significant boost to exploration.
A moon-orbiting asteroid is also envisioned to be of interest to private companies, which are proposing human missions to the lunar surface for scientific exploration and mining studies.
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