SpaceWorks Engineering, Inc. (SEI) and SpaceDev, Inc. Win Planetary Society's International Apophis Mission Design Competition

Finally the results...our team consisting of SpaceWorks Engineering and SpaceDev won the Apophis Mission Design Competition. Congratulations to our entire team and the rest of the winners. Here is a summary with links to press releases, news stories, etc.

Summary:

Engineering services and concept development firm SpaceWorks Engineering, Inc. (SEI) and innovative space systems provider SpaceDev, Inc. announce that their Foresight radio beacon spacecraft design has won the Planetary Society's international Apophis mission design competition. The competition' s purpose was to design a "tagging" mission to improve knowledge of the asteroid Apophis' orbit. More than thirty international teams entered the contest.

Links:

Link: SEI Press Release
Link: Planetary Society competition summary page
Link: Planetary Society press release
Link: Planetary Society winners announcement

A two page executive summary of the Foresight spacecraft can be found here: Foresight Flyer.

SEI/SpaceDev's five page presentation from the press conference at the Planetary Society on 26 February 2008 can be found here: Foresight Presentation at The Planetary Society Press Conference.

The full report can be found here: Foresight Final Report.

Foresight spacecraft images can be found below and at the SEI Image Gallery.

Other Media Stories:
Link: Wired.com article
Link: BBC News Article

Planetary Society's Target Earth Initiative on NEO Threat (also update on results for their Apophis Mission Design Competition, now mid to late Feb.)

Asteroid impact on early Earth. Some scientists believe that impacts such as this during the Late Heavy Bombardment period, 4 billion years ago, may have delivered primitive life to Earth. Credit: Don Davis.

Selections from the news release...

To mark the 100th anniversary of the Tunguska event, when an exploding asteroid leveled 2000 square kilometers of Siberian forest, The Planetary Society today kicked off a year-long focus on Target Earth. The asteroid believed responsible for the cataclysm on June 30, 1908 became a fireball from the sky and knocked pine trees over like matchsticks near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Russia. Such an explosion today over more populated areas could lay waste an entire city.

Target Earth will focus on a variety of NEO projects supported by The Planetary Society, including the Apophis Mission Design Competition, the Gene Shoemaker Near Earth Object Grants, NEO mission advocacy, and a one-hour HD TV “Daily Planet” special on asteroids being produced by Discovery Canada.

In mid-to late February, the Society will announce the winners of the Apophis Mission Design Competition, which invited participants to compete for $50,000 in prizes by designing a mission to rendezvous with and "tag" a potentially dangerous near-Earth asteroid. The competition received 37 mission proposals from 19 countries on 6 continents.

"Planetary Society Takes Aim at Target Earth"
Planetary Society News Release
29 January 2008

Link: Planetary Society News Release on "Target Earth": 29 January 2008

Update on 2007 WD5

From Planetary Society Blog (Emily Lakdawalla)...

"WD5 most likely missed Mars, but we may never know"
Feb. 4, 2008 | 12:15 PST | 20:15 UTC

I just chatted with Steven Chesley of JPL's Near Earth Object program about the fate of 2007 WD5, the could-have-hit-Mars-but-most-likely-didn't asteroid. He said that based on the orbit predicted from the last observations of the asteroid, which were taken on January 9, they think it missed Mars by 6.5 Mars radii, which is a near miss in solar system terms but very far from the bull's eye if what you really wanted to see from the encounter was a new crater on Mars. (For those of you interested in the statistics, I asked him what the 1-sigma and 3-sigma uncertainties in the miss distance were; they were 1.8 and 2.2 Mars radii, respectively.)

Now, a 6.5-Mars-radius flyby is quite close enough to alter the course of WD5 significantly. Where's it going to go next? The answer is, no one knows. The uncertainty surrounding WD5's exact position with respect to Mars during the encounter hugely balloons when you try to figure out its future path. It essentially got a gravity assist from Mars, but without knowing exactly at what distance and, equally importantly, at what latitude it flew past the planet, we have no idea where Mars flung it. Mars isn't big enough to send an asteroid right out of the solar system (only Jupiter has strong enough gravity to pull off that trick), but a close flyby can really seriously change the orbit of a small body like WD5.

Link: Planetary Society Blog

Hubble will attempt to capture 2007 WD5 as it nears Mars

From the Planetary Society Blog:

...They're going to try to catch [2007] WD5 with the Hubble Space Telescope. An alert reader pointed me to various resources on the Space Telescope Science Institute website where you can read about plans for upcoming observations to be performed by Hubble. On this page, Keith Noll proposes in Hubble proposal 11407 "to observe 2007 WD5 prior to its possible impact with Mars. In the event that an impact does occur, we will also observe the asteroid as it approaches Mars, the impact itself, and the aftermath of the impact. HST has unique capabilities to observe this potentially very unusual event." Note that once any observations are performed, the same page will allow you to query the Hubble data banks for information the actual data. And on this other page, you can learn that of the five observations that Noll originally requested, the first four have been withdrawn; presumably these were the ones that would have been taken to observe the approach and impact. Only one set of observations is now planned, using the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), running from January 30 at 10:45:28 to 11:05:00. Those observations are about an hour before the latest close approach time reported by JPL's Near Earth Object program.

Link: Planetary Society Blog Post

Update from United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA): Draft Agenda Items on NEOs

From the agenda where the UN body will discuss various topics including NEOs...

[Agenda Item] 12. Near-Earth objects

In paragraph 10 (b) of its resolution 62/217, the General Assembly endorsed the recommendation of the Committee that the Subcommittee, at its forty-fifth session, should consider this item in accordance with the new multi-year workplan for the period 2008-2010, adopted by the Subcommittee at its forty-fourth session (A/AC.105/890, annex III, para. 7).

In accordance with the workplan, the Subcommittee, at its forty-fifth session, will take the following actions:

(a) Continue intersessional work;
(b) Consider the reports submitted in response to the annual request for information on near-Earth object activities;
(c) Update the interim report of the Action Team on Near-Earth Objects.

The reports mentioned in subparagraph (b) above are contained in document A/AC.105/896. The interim report of the Action Team on Near-Earth Objects for the period 2007-2008, mentioned in subparagraph (c) above, is contained in document A/AC.105/C.1/L.295.

In paragraph 15 of its resolution 62/217, the General Assembly agreed that the Subcommittee, at its forty-fifth session, should reconvene its Working Group on Near-Earth Objects, in accordance with the workplan under this item.

Link: Provisional Agenda for the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) Scientific and Technical Subcommittee: 2008

Don Yeomans Video Roundup on Asteroid 2007 TU24

Link: YouTube Video: "Asteroid 2007 TU24 Close Approach"

Link: NASA Downloadable Video of Don Yeomans

Analysis of Stardust materials reveals similarity to asteroids

Getting into the details: Stardust impact tracks and light gas gun impacts of sulfide in aerogel both display metal beads with sulfide rims indicating that GEMS-like objects in Stardust are generated by impact mixing of comet dust with silica aerogel. (left) Stardust GEMS-like material and (right) light gas gun shot GEM-like material. GEMS in cometary IDPs do not contain sulfide-rimmed metal inclusions. [Image credit: Hope Ishii, LLNL]


Stardust impact tracks created by comet dust entering silica aerogel at 6 km/s. [Image credit: NASA/JPL]

From the article...

Contrary to expectations for a small icy body, much of the comet dust returned by the Stardust mission formed very close to the young sun and was altered from the solar system’s early materials.

When the Stardust mission returned to Earth with samples from the comet Wild 2 in 2006, scientists knew the material would provide new clues about the formation of our solar system, but they didn’t know exactly how.

New research by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and collaborators reveals that, in addition to containing material that formed very close to the young sun, the dust from Wild 2 also is missing ingredients that would be expected in comet dust. Surprisingly, the Wild 2 comet sample better resembles a meteorite from the asteroid belt rather than an ancient, unaltered comet.

Comets are expected to contain large amounts of the most primitive material in the solar system, a treasure trove of stardust from other stars and other ancient materials. But in the case of Wild 2, that simply is not the case.

By comparing the Stardust samples to cometary interplanetary dust particles (CP IDPs), the team found that two silicate materials normally found in cometary IDPs, together with other primitive materials including presolar stardust grains from other stars, have not been found in the abundances that might be expected in a Kuiper Belt comet like Wild 2. The high-speed capture of the Stardust particles may be partly responsible; but extra refractory components that formed in the inner solar nebula within a few astronomical units of the sun, indicate that the Stardust material resembles chondritic meteorites from the asteroid belt.

Link: LLNL Press Release

Link: New Scientist Article

Roundup of Articles on 2007 TU24

These low-resolution radar images of asteroid 2007 TU24 were taken over a few hours by the Goldstone Solar System Radar Telescope in California's Mojave Desert. Image resolution is approximately 20-meters per pixel. Next week, the plan is to have a combination of several telescopes provide higher resolution images. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

From the article...

Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., have obtained the first images of asteroid 2007 TU24 using high-resolution radar data. The data indicate the asteroid is somewhat asymmetrical in shape, with a diameter roughly 250 meters (800 feet) in size. Asteroid 2007 TU24 will pass within 1.4 lunar distances, or 538,000 kilometers (334,000 miles), of Earth on Jan. 29 at 12:33 a.m. Pacific time (3:33 a.m. Eastern time).

Link: NASA Article on Goldstone observations

Link: Washington Post Article

Link: NASA JPL Information

First Image of Approaching Asteroid"
Jeanna Bryner
Space.com
28 January 2008

Link: Space.com article

New modeling of Chicxulub asteroid impact reveals larger environmental impact than previously thought

Selections from the article...

The most detailed three-dimensional seismic images yet of the Chicxulub crater, a mostly submerged and buried impact crater on the Mexico coast, may modify a theory explaining the extinction of 70 percent of life on Earth 65 million years ago.

The Chicxulub crater was formed when an asteroid struck on the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. Most scientists agree the impact played a major role in the "KT Extinction Event" that caused the extinction of most life on Earth, including the dinosaurs.

According to Sean Gulick, a research scientist at the Institute for Geophysics at The University of Texas at Austin's Jackson School of Geosciences and principal investigator for the project, the new images reveal the asteroid landed in deeper water than previously assumed and therefore released about 6.5 times more water vapor into the atmosphere.

The impact site also contained sulfur-rich sediments called evaporites, which would have reacted with water vapor to produce sulfate aerosols. According to Gulick, an increase in the atmospheric concentration of the compounds could have made the impact deadlier in two ways: by altering climate (sulfate aerosols in the upper atmosphere can have a cooling effect) and by generating acid rain (water vapor can help to flush the lower atmosphere of sulfate aerosols, causing acid rain). Earlier studies had suggested both effects might result from the impact, but to a lesser degree.

"The greater amount of water vapor and consequent potential increase in sulfate aerosols needs to be taken into account for models of extinction mechanisms," says Gulick.

"Seismic Images Show Dinosaur-Killing Meteor Made Bigger Splash"
January 23, 2008
Press Release
University of Texas at Austin

Link: Press Release

ABSTRACT

"Importance of pre-impact crustal structure for the asymmetry of the Chicxulub impact crater"
Nature Geoscience
Published online: 13 January 2008
Sean P. S. Gulick, el al.

Impact craters are observed on the surfaces of all rocky planets and satellites in our Solar System1; some impacts on Earth, such as the Cretaceous/Tertiary one that formed the Chicxulub impact crater have been implicated in mass extinctions. The direction and angle of the impact—or its trajectory—is an important determinant of the severity of the consequent environmental damage, both in the downrange direction (direction bolide travels) and in the amount of material that enters the plume of material vaporized on impact. The trajectory of the Chicxulub impact has previously been inferred largely from asymmetries in the gravity anomalies over the crater. Here, we use seismic data to image the Chicxulub crater in three dimensions and demonstrate that the strong asymmetry of its subsurface correlates with significant pre-existing undulations on the end-Cretaceous continental shelf that was the site of this impact. These results suggest that for rocky planets, geological and geomorphological heterogeneities at the target site may play an important role in determining impact crater structure, in addition to impact trajectories. In those cases where heterogeneous targets are inferred, deciphering impact trajectories from final crater geometries alone may be difficult and require further data such as the distribution of ejecta.

Link: Abstract from Nature Geoscience

Link: Full PDF of Paper

Asteroid 2007 TU24 Potentially Visible from Earth on 28 Jan 2008

The illustration below is courtesy of amateur astronomer Dr. Dale Ireland from Silverdale, WA. The illustration shows the asteroid's [2007 TU24] track on the sky for 3 days near the time of the close Earth approach as seen from the city of Philadelphia.

From Don Yeomans at JPL NEO:

Asteroid 2007 TU24, discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey on October 11, 2007 will closely approach the Earth to within 1.4 lunar distances (334,000 miles) on 2008 Jan. 29 08:33 UT. This object, between 150 and 600 meters in diameter, will reach an approximate apparent magnitude 10.3 on Jan. 29-30 before quickly becoming fainter as it moves further from Earth. For a brief time the asteroid will be observable in dark and clear skies with amateur telescopes of 3 inch apertures or larger.

Link: Article