European Space Agency (ESA) Advanced Concepts Team (ACT) on "Apophis - Encounter 2029"

Final presentation videos are now online from the European Space Agency (ESA) Advanced Concepts Team (ACT). These videos are executive summarizes from recent concept studies (referred to as Ariadna studies) on the topic: ‘Preparing for Apophis - Encounter 2029’. Here is the YouTube channel.



Link: ESA ACT "Apophis - Encounter 2029" Channel

NASA FY2010 Budget and NEOs: Initial Review

The NASA Budget for FY2010 has been initially released by the White House. Here are some initial notes:

Budget Estimates for the Near Earth Object Observations
(FY2010 President's Budget Request)

FY2008 (Actual): $3.3 M
FY2009 (Enacted): $3.7 M
FY2010: $3.8 M
FY2011: $3.8 M
FY2012: $3.9 M
FY2013: $4.0 M
FY2014: $4.1 M

Near Earth Object Observations

The Near Earth Object Observations (NEOO) was transferred from the Earth Science Division beginning in FY 2010. Its objective is to detect and track 90 percent of the Near Earth Objects, asteroids, and comets that come within 1.3 Astronomical Units of the Sun, and to find those which have any potential to collide with Earth and do significant damage at the surface. A network of existing ground-based telescopes and modifications to existing space-based sensors, and supporting data processing and analysis infrastructure, will be funded to achieve this objective.

Link: NASA FY2010 Budget

The Planetary Society's 2009 Shoemaker NEO Grant Recipients

From The Planetary Society (TPS):

The 2009 Gene Shoemaker Near Earth Object Grants totaled $18,300 (US) and were awarded to three amateur astronomers and researchers:

- Russel Durkee, Minnesota, USA
- Robert Holmes, Illinois, USA
- Gary Hug, Kansas, USA

Link: The Planetary Society (TPS) News Announcement

Recap of 1996 Paper from E. Smith: "A Manned Flyby Mission to Eros"

"A Manned Flyby Mission to Eros"
Eugene Smith, March 1966, Northrop Space Laboratories (Hawthorne, California), Presented at the Third Space Congress in Cocoa, Florida.

Reference:
A manned flyby mission to Eros (Technical feasibility of 1975 manned flyby mission to Eros and examination of lesser bodies of solar system), SMITH, E A, THE CHALLENGE OF SPACE, PROCEEDINGS OF THE THIRD SPACE CONGRESS, COCOA BEACH, FLA ; United States; 7-10 Mar. 1966. pp. 137-155. 1966

From David S. F. Portree's Beyond Apollo Blog:
http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/2009/01/manned-eros-flyby-1966.html

German astronomer Gustav Witt discovered the asteroid Eros on August 13, 1898. Eros was both the first asteroid found to orbit entirely outside of the Asteroid Belt and the first known planet-crosser; its path crosses that of Mars. In March 1966, Eugene Smith, an engineer at Northrop Space Laboratories in Hawthorne, California, presented a paper on a piloted Eros flyby mission at the Third Space Congress in Cocoa, Florida. In it, he wrote that Eros exploration might help scientists understand Main Belt asteroids and small planetary moons (for example, the martian satellites Deimos and Phobos). He noted that Eros would pass within 14 million miles of Earth in January 1975.

At the time Smith presented this paper, NASA and its contractors studied piloted free-return Mars and Venus flyby missions based on Apollo technology. The first of these was expected to leave Earth in 1975. Among other expected benefits, a Mars flyby would provide interplanetary flight experience ahead of 1980s piloted Mars landings. Smith noted, however, that a Mars flyby mission would likely be so heavy that placing all of its components and propellants into space would need either a Saturn V rocket with a nuclear upper stage or multiple all-chemical Saturn Vs followed by assembly in Earth orbit. He called instead for a 1975 piloted Eros flyby that would provide experience applicable to Mars landings, yet could depart Earth on a single uprated Saturn V rocket.

Smith argued that "the value of the Eros mission to subsequent manned planetary flights having a higher level of difficulty and complexity is of no small consequence." He added that "interplanetary experience comes only from interplanetary missions: less difficult flights, such as that to Eros, could significantly enhance experience acquired in Earth orbital and lunar activities, and could thereby increase the probability of success for the missions to follow."

Smith's 527-day Eros flyby mission would begin with launch and Earth departure on May 3, 1974, at the opening of a 30-day launch window. Upon arrival in 100-nautical-mile parking orbit, the Eros Flyby Spacecraft Vehicle (EFSV) would comprise a 33.6-ton Eros Command Module/Eros Service Module (ECM/ESM), a 33.2-ton Eros Mission Module (EMM), and a 98.6-ton Apollo Saturn V S-IVB stage, for a total mass of 165.4 tons. The ECM would be based on the conical Apollo Command Module design.

At the time Smith presented his paper, the Apollo Saturn V had yet to fly, but NASA expected that it would be able to launch about 130 tons into 100-nautical-mile parking orbit. Smith cited studies that proposed boosting Saturn V launch capacity to 165 tons by uprating the four J2 engines in its S-II second stage. Alternately, the rocket's S-IC first stage could be fitted with twin 260-inch-diameter solid-propellant strap-on boosters so that it could launch about 215 tons. This, Smith wrote, would provide ample margin for EFSV weight growth during development.

Upon arrival in parking orbit, the six-man crew in the ECM/ESM would check out the EFSV's systems. Assuming that all appeared normal, they would ignite the S-IVB stage engine at perigee to raise the ESFV's apogee and gain over 90% of the velocity needed to depart Earth orbit for Eros. The crew would then separate the ECM/ESM, turn it end for end, and dock with the EMM.

After jettisoning the spent S-IVB, they would transfer to the EMM, their main living and working space during the Eros flyby mission. They would deploy the EMM's eight disk-shaped solar panels, a steerable "sensor turret," a large dish antenna, and a "support structure" for shielding the ECM from sunlight and micrometeroids. After linking the EMM and ECM/ESM electrical and control systems, they would check out all systems a second time.

If the EFSV failed checkout, the astronauts could abort their mission by separating from the EMM in the ECM/ESM and firing the ESM's twin liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen-fueled RL-10A-3 main engines at perigee to reduce speed so they could reenter Earth's atmosphere in the ECM. If the spacecraft checked out, however, the astronauts would fire the ESM engines at perigee to add enough velocity to place the EFSV on course for Eros.

On January 18, 1975, the astronauts would begin tracking Eros using radar, a five-foot-long reflecting telescope with a 30-inch primary mirror, and other instruments mounted in the EMM's sensor turret. On January 23, 1975, they would fire the ESM engines to ensure an Eros close-approach distance of about 50 miles and begin gathering Eros science data. About eight hours before closest approach, the astronauts would catapult a 200-pound automated probe toward the asteroid. The EMM's dish antenna would relay to Earth data from the probe's TV camera and other instruments.

Closest approach to Eros would occur about 14 million miles from Earth on January 28. The piloted spacecraft would spend about 90 seconds within 200 miles of asteroid's sunlit side and about 30 seconds within 100 miles. On January 30, 1975, the crew would end Eros tracking and fire the ESM engines to correct course deviations imparted by the January 23 maneuver, the automated probe launch, and the weak tug of Eros' gravity.

The astronauts would load the ECM with scientific data and check out its systems on October 10, 1975. On October 12, they would abandon the EMM and use the ESM engines to place the ECM on course for Earth atmosphere reentry. They would then jettison the ESM, reenter Earth's atmosphere at about 40,000 feet per second, and descend to the surface on parachutes.

Congress killed NASA's plans for piloted Mars and Venus flyby missions in August 1967. Smith's Eros flyby proposal received little attention. The only U.S. piloted mission of 1975 was the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, which saw the final Apollo spacecraft dock with the Soviet Soyuz 19 spacecraft in low-Earth orbit. When NASA at last explored a near-Earth asteroid, it explored Eros. The $112-million Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission - the first mission in NASA's new low-cost Discovery Program - left Earth on February 17, 1996, more than 20 years after the planned launch date of Smith's piloted Eros flyby.

On December 20, 1998, NEAR failed to enter Eros orbit because its computer aborted a crucial engine burn. Three days later, after some quick reprogramming, NEAR flew past the 22-mile-long, 13-mile-wide asteroid at a distance of 2375 miles, returning 222 images.

On February 14, 2000, after an additional revolution about the Sun, NEAR at last orbited its target. NASA renamed the spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker in March 2000 to commemorate renowned planetary geologist and comet discoverer Eugene Shoemaker, who had died in a car crash in Australia in 1997. In the year that followed, the spacecraft radioed to Earth more than 160,000 close-up images of Eros.

Though designed as an orbiter, NEAR Shoemaker succeeded in landing on Eros on February 12, 2001. It returned gamma-ray spectrometry data from the asteroid's surface until February 28, 2001.

"A Manned Flyby Mission to Eros," Eugene A. Smith, Proceedings of the Third Space Congress, "The Challenge of Space," pp. 137-155; paper presented at the Third Space Congress in Cocoa Beach, Florida, March 7-10, 1966.

Link: Beyondapollo Blog Entry by David S. F. Portree

Trailer for "Impact" Movie / "The Last Impact" in Germany

From IMDB:

While the entire world watches the largest meteor shower in 10,000 years, a rogue asteroid, hidden by the meteor field, smashes into the moon in a tremendous explosion of rock and debris. Fragments from the asteroid, and even from the moon itself, penetrate Earth's atmosphere and make impact. Even though the initial damage is minimal, nerves are frayed throughout the planet. There is significant physical damage to the lunar surface, but experts quickly conclude there will be no lasting ramifications. Then strange anomalies begin to manifest themselves on Earth. It starts small - cell phone disruptions, unusual static charges and odd tidal behavior. The world's leading scientists, including Alex Kittner, Maddie Rhodes and Roland Emerson, begin piecing together evidence that suggests the moon's properties, and its orbit, may have been permanently altered. Their fears are realized when the anomalies increase to the point where the effect of "simulated" gravity is being manipulated by increased electromagnetic surges coming from the moon. People, cars and other objects are rendered momentarily weightless in random, isolated areas around the globe. Alex, Maddie, Roland and the rest of their team soon discover something far worse - the moon's new orbit has put it on a collision course with Earth! The world now has 39 days to stop it or Earth, and all of mankind, will perish. After a failed attempt by the United States to destroy the moon, our heroes bring all the countries of the world together in one last hope for humanity - an international mission to the moon itself where astronauts will attempt to reverse the magnetic effects and restore the moon to its original orbit. Alex, whose children are now missing after the latest rampage of anti-gravity, is emotionally torn as he must now join Roland and two other astronauts on the Earth saving mission into space. It is a race against time as the two celestial bodies are drawn closer and closer to impact, the world united, watching and praying, the survival of mankind in the balance.

Link: IMDB Entry for "Impact" (2008)

Link: YouTube Vide: "Last impact - Der Einschlag - TV-Trailer"

Updates from Louis Friedman about Lincoln Conference on NEO Policy and Bruce Betts on IAA Planetary Defense Conference

Rusty Schweickart (left) and Tom Jones speaking at the University of Nebraska College of Law Conference on NEO Law and Policy, April 2009. Credit: Louis D. Friedman (The Planetary Society)

Planetary Society Shoemaker NEO winner Jana Ticha (left) and colleague Milos Tichy from Klet Observatory in the Czech Republic. The picture was taken during a reception at the IAA Planetary Defense Conference in Granada, Spain in April 2009. Credit: Bruce Betts (The Planetary Society)

Here are extensive notes from Dr. Louis D. Friedman and Dr. Bruce Betts (both of The Planetary Society) about the recently concluded University of Nebraska-Lincoln Conference on NEOs and Space Policy (Lincoln, Nebraska) and the 1st IAA Planetary Defense Conference (Granada, Spain).

Update from the Conference on NEO Law and Policy
23 April 2009, 2009 03:10 UTC
Louis D. Friedman
Link: The Planetary Society Blog Post

More from the Conference on NEO Law and Policy
24 April 2009 05:41 UTC
Louis D. Friedman
Link: The Planetary Society Blog Post

Updates from the IAA Planetary Defense Conference
27 April 2009 22:27 UTC
Bruce Betts
Link: The Planetary Society Blog Post

More from the Planetary Defense Conference: Shoemaker Grant Winners
27 April 2009 22:54 UTC
Bruce Betts
Link: The Planetary Society Blog Post

Planetary Defense Conference: Apophis Mission Design Competition
29 April 2009 21:15 UTC
Bruce Betts
Link: The Planetary Society Blog Post

Planetary Defense Conference: Interesting Tidbits
30 April 2009 20:03 UTC
Bruce Betts
Link: The Planetary Society Blog Post

Final Update from Planetary Defense Conference
30 April 2009 22:55 UTC
Bruce Betts
Link: The Planetary Society Blog Post

Bruce Betts from the Planetary Society: Giving an Update on 2009 Planetary Defense Conference

Presentation of Foresight, an radio beacon mission to Near Earth Asteroid Apophis, winner of The Planetary Society's 2007 Apophis Mission Design Competiton. The presentation was made at the 2009 IAA Planetary Defense Conference in Granada, Spain in April 2009.

Bruce Betts discusses updates to the Apophis Mission Design Competition entries on The Planetary Society's site. Here is the post:

Projects: Apophis Mission Design Competition
Apophis Mission Design Competition at the Planetary Defense Conference
by Bruce Betts
April 29, 2009

The Planetary Society's Director of Projects, Dr. Bruce Betts, is currently in Granada, Spain, where he is attending the Planetary Defense Conference. He filed this update.

One highlight of the Planetary Defense Conference has been the chance to see all of The Planetary Society's Apophis Mission Design Competition winning teams. Not only are these teams here, they are also all continuing work on their mission designs and related studies, and presenting their mission designs to space agencies and colleagues.

What has been striking to see at this conference is the staying power of the competition. We had hoped for this, and have ourselves been working with space agencies, advocating for consideration of the mission designs. It has been wonderful to see all three winners of the open competition are represented here. Note that all three of the prize winners were considered excellent proposals. Though the prize assignments were unanimous in our review panel, the discussions that led to the line up were long and thorough. In other words, all three were very viable mission designs.

A.C. Charania is here representing the SpaceWorks/SpaceDev winning entry. He presented the concept in detail in one of the sessions, along with follow up studies they have done including assessing new launch vehicle options, and future plans they have. They have also presented their mission concept at other conferences and in front of various space agencies. They continue to work with spacecraft designers to flesh out options for Apophis missions.

Juan L. Cano was the leader of the 2nd prize team and is here at the conference. He is from Deimos Space here in Spain, and his team included a variety of organizations from several countries in Europe. They are now involved with doing detailed Apophis mission studies for ESA, and he presented some of their results. He told me the Apophis competition caused them to move forward with their designs and plans, and has helped lead them to where they are now.

The third prize team, another large European consortium, in this case led by a team from Astrium in the U.K., is also continuing to pursue related work. I talked with Craig Brown from Astrium. He was not on the proposal team, but is working on some of the follow-on. He says Astrium continues to be very interested in studying NEO missions. In addition to mission studies, they have also spun off studies of how to take spacecraft thermal models and apply them to NEOs to study and predict the "Yarkovsky effect." The Yarkovsky effect, which sounds more like something that occurs under hypnosis, is actually something getting a lot of discussion at this conference. Differential temperatures on a rotating asteroid between its morning and afternoon sides actually causes changes to the orbit of asteroids. The effect is not well understood yet, but because of its significance for an object like Apophis, lots of people are thinking about it.

Link: Projects: Apophis Mission Design Competition

Selected Images from the 1st IAA Planetary Defense Conference (27-30 April 2009, Granada, Spain)

Note: The following are the few images I took at the 1st IAA Planetary Defense Conference in Granada, Spain. I took a limited quantity of images. I may post other images as taken by another conference participant. All images are copyright 2009, A.C. Charania unless otherwise noted (permission to redistribute or republish is required).


Granada, Spain (site of the 1st IAA Planetary Defense Conference)


Spanish Astronaut Pedro Duque talks about the threat from PHOs (Day 1 - Monday, 27 April 2009).


Welcome reception at Hotel San Anton in Granada, Spain. Seen here: center left - Clark Chapman and center right - Dave Morrison (Day 1 - Monday, 27 April 2009).


Dr. Yoshikawa from JAXA/ISAS talks about his paper called: "Navigation and Guidance of Hayabusa around the Tiny Asteroid Itokawa." He is holding two models of Itokawa based upon data returned from the Hayabusa spacecraft, one is based upon more recent data and is thus a more realistic model (Day 2 - Tuesday, 28 April 2009).


Astronaut Rusty Schweikert gives a talk in place of Ed Lu (who could not be at the conference) called "Every Threatening Asteroid an Apophis." He is pointing to a graph that shows the width of various "keyholes" in the year 2029, when the asteroid Apophis passes by the Earth. If Apophis goes through any of the keyholes shown then it will come back during its approach on the year listed and impact the Earth. As can be seen the keyhole for the 2036 impact case is much larger than any other ones in the 2029 pass. The implication is that there are many more keyhole than just the next one and any deflection will have to a post-deflection observation (Day 3 - Wednesday, 29 April 2009).


Dr. Tancredi at the beginning of his talk ("The Carancas Event: a Recent Hypervelocity Impact Crater in the Altiplano") estimates the geographic origin of attendees to the conference (Day 3 - Wednesday, 29 April 2009).


Dr. Tancredi shows the location of the impact point for the Carancas meteorite, in a region bordering three countries (Day 3 - Wednesday, 29 April 2009).


Dr. Tancredi showing the evidence identified during on-scene investigation of the Carancas meteorite impact event. This evidence includes the damage on the roof of a house/shed, a man blown off a bicycle, an eyewitness, and a cow whose horn was bent (from falling down due to the shock from the impact event apparently) (Day 3 - Wednesday, 29 April 2009)


Dr. Gisler from the University of Oslo (Norway) talks about his paper ("Near-Field Effects of Asteroid Impacts in Deep Water") (Day 3 - Wednesday, 29 April 2009)

Article: "Princeton geoscientist offers new evidence that meteorite did not wipe out dinosaurs"

Selections from the article...

A Princeton University geoscientist who has stirred controversy with her studies challenging a popular theory that an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs has compiled powerful new evidence asserting her position.

Gerta Keller, whose studies of rock formations at many sites in the United States, Mexico and India have led her to conclude that volcanoes, not a vast meteorite, were the more likely culprits in the demise of the Earth's giant reptiles, is producing new data supporting her claim.

Keller, a Princeton professor of geosciences, and several co-authors lay out the case in a paper published April 27 in the Journal of the Geological Society of London [KELLER, G., ADATTE, T., PARDO JUEZ, A. & LOPEZ-OLIVA, J.G. New evidence concerning the age and biotic effects of the Chicxulub impact in NE Mexico]. Examinations at several new sites have produced "biotic evidence" -- the fossilized traces of plants and animals tied to the period in question -- indicating that a massive die-off did not occur directly after the strike but much later.

Using these fossil remains to construct a timeline, she and her team were able to date the surrounding geologic features and begin to piece together proof that the impact occurred 300,000 years before the great extinction.

Over the years, Keller's group has amassed evidence for as many as four major events widely separated in time in that area of Mexico as well as in Texas. The oldest of the four events is the Chicxulub impact, seen by the fallout of glass beads. The second is about 150,000 years later and seen in a layer of sandstone with Chicxulub impact glass beads that were transported from shallow shore areas into deep waters during a sea level fall and was commonly interpreted as a tsunami generated by the Chicxulub impact. About 100,000 to 150,000 years later, the third event struck at the time of the K-T boundary with its iridium layer and mass extinction. This event may represent a second large impact or massive volcanism. The fourth event is possibly a smaller impact as evidenced by another iridium layer about 100,000 years after the mass extinction.

Advocates of the Chicxulub impact theory suggest that the impact crater and the mass extinction event only appear far apart in the sedimentary record because an earthquake or tsunami caused slumps and mixing of sediments surrounding the Gulf of Mexico. To date no evidence of major disturbance has been found in the sediments.

Keller says her team's newest research, however, confirms what she has found in earlier studies -- that the sandstone complex that overlays the impact layer was not deposited over hours or days by a tsunami but over a long time period. From El Peñon in Mexico and other sites listed in the new study, the scientists were able to calculate that between 13 and 30 feet of sediments were deposited at a rate of about an inch per thousand years after the impact. These sediments separating the impact layer from the sandstone complex and the overlying mass extinction were formed by normal processes. There is evidence of erosion and transportation of sediments in the sandstone layers, but no evidence of structural disturbance, Keller said.

Keller suggests that the massive volcanic eruptions at the Deccan Traps in India may be responsible for the extinction, releasing massive amounts of dust and gases that could have blocked sunlight, altered climate and caused acid rain. The fact that the Chicxulub impact seems to have had no effect on biota, she said, despite its 6-mile-in-diameter size, indicates that even large asteroid impacts may not be as deadly as imagined.

"Princeton geoscientist offers new evidence that meteorite did not wipe out dinosaurs"
Kitta MacPherson
Princeton University Press Release
04 May 2009 10:00 ET

Link: Article

Link: Journal of the Geological Society (Volume 166, Part 3, May 2009) - KELLER, G., ADATTE, T., PARDO JUEZ, A. & LOPEZ-OLIVA, J.G. New evidence concerning the age and biotic effects of the Chicxulub impact in NE Mexico, 393.
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Launchspace Announces Asteroid Busters Site (and call for ideas for NEO defense)

Launchspace announced a new site (Asteroid Busters) and a request for ideas related to protection of the Earth from NEOs. However the website is not up yet (www.asteroidbusters.com/). From their news release:

The Asteroids Are Coming!

This isn't just "buzz" to get you excited about a new movie coming; we really are being buzzed by asteroids and other NEOs (Near Earth Objects), and one day these conjunctions could become collisions! There are lots of NEOs out there orbiting the sun. Some, like comets, are less worrisome since they are composed primarily of ice and small, rocky particles that dissipate upon entering Earth's atmosphere. Others, however, like asteroids are thought of as minor planets that are large enough to damage Earth and its environment if an encounter should take place. Astronomers estimate that there are approximately 1100 near Earth asteroids bigger than one kilometer in diameter and more than one million that are larger than 40 meters in diameter. Those smaller than 40 meters tend to burn up in the atmosphere, but the impact of a 40-meter diameter asteroid is equivalent to a three-megaton bomb! One megaton is the equivalent explosive power of one million tons of TNT. For comparison, the Little Boy atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, exploded with an energy of about 15 kilotons of TNT.

Larger NEOs of about 2 kilometers in size could impart energies in the category of about a million megatons! Such an impact could result in an "impact winter" with global loss of crops and subsequent starvation and disease. Large impacts could cause mass extinctions of species. And....scientists know that most of the larger asteroids are as yet undetected! How do we detect, and better yet, deflect such large asteroids? Eventually, one of these will be spotted. And when that happens, who do we call? Right now there is no one to call, because the world has no defense against pending large asteroid encounters! If this is troubling, here is the bad news.

On March 2 of this year, asteroid 2009 DD45 zipped just 41,000 miles above Earth at a speed of 12 miles per second at its closest point to Earth. Amateur astronomers aided professionals at the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center by providing measurements used in refining calculations of the asteroid's orbit. But, astronomers did not even detect the asteroid until just a couple of days before it zoomed by Earth; far too late to take any preventative action. This was not an isolated incident as many NEOs come this close to Earth and zip by undetected!

Scientists have demonstrated that several large NEO impacts in the past have altered both life and the environment. While the probability of a life-ending impact is low, scientists know that potentially critical collisions are inevitable. Why are we not doing something to mitigate or hopefully prevent such a catastrophic event?

The answer to this question is complicated. As humans, we focus on potential dangers only when they are imminent, or after the fact. We react when the danger becomes real and the situation becomes urgent. However, deflecting large asteroids is not easy, simple or inexpensive. We do not yet know how to do it, but we do know it will require early detection and long-term investments on a global scale.

We want to start thinking about ways to protect Earth from NEOs and we need your ideas. Please send them to our new site at Asteroid Busters and we will publish the better ideas in future articles.

Send your ideas to Ideas@asteroidbusters.com

Link: Asteroidbusters.com

Link: LaunchSpace