Asteroid Mission Competition Announces Winner

Riding with Robots writes "The Planetary Society 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 asteroid Apophis was used as the target for the mission design because it will come closer to Earth in 2029 than the orbit of geostationary satellites. The winning mission design is called Foresight, and calls for the use of off-the-shelf parts to undercut the price of other proposals. Here's a PDF of the winning proposal."

Comments

It could be worse

[aadvancedGIR]

The asteroid could be full of highly toxic fuel.

Re:It could be worse

[tiluki]

Or, as Burns would have it:

``In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley.''

Interesting name...

[red star hardkore]

Apophis... Didn't he try to destroy earth with an asteroid in SG1?

Re:Interesting name...

[TypoNAM]

That was actually Anubis in Fail Safe of season five.

Re:Interesting name...

[Talderas]

No, Apophis just was going to invade Earth, bombing us back into the bronze age. Anubis was the one that used the Asteroid to try to hit Earth. Apparently he had seen all our Armageddon type movies, and the asteroid he used was mostly Naquaada, meaning the use of a nuclear weapon to divert or split the asteroid would have resulted in the asteroid becoming a huge explosion that would have likely engulfed Earth in the blast.

Re:Interesting name...

[downix]

Apophis, also called Apep, is the egyptian worldsnake, desiring to consume the sun and destroy all life. It was fought each day by the god Set, to protect the sun god Ra, as he made his way through the underworld. But yet, despite being killed every day, it continually ressurects to threaten again the next day.

Re:Interesting name...

[joaommp]

Right, with a weapons grade naquadah core.

But dun'worry. For those big ones, Carter will deal with them. Big ones get her horny.

Let the wannabe's take care of those petty ones that the most they can do is bring Earth into a nuclear winter after destroying some major city. Paris. In the movies it's allways Paris.

Re:Interesting name...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I for one, am going to bow before my new asteroid-weilding God.

Re:Interesting name...

[enjerth]

But yet, despite being killed every day, it continually ressurects to threaten again the next day. Oh my god! You killed Kenny!

Re:Interesting name...

[Tatarize]

The namers of the asteroids are reportedly fans. So it's not all an interesting coincidence.

--

I think that over twenty years the extra weight of that little tag is going to knock it off it's current course and make it hit Earth. I ask that all of you repeat this, make youtube videos about it and proclaim repeatedly that we're all going to die.

Thank you.

Huh?

[zappepcs]

COTS - commercial off the shelf - parts is standard industry stuff. I'm wondering how this cut enough costs to be winner. What are the other people using? There is a lot of military hardware built with COTS. Does anyone have enough info on the other competitors to say why COTS undercut them?

Re:Huh?

[Kostya]

COTS means ready-made components, with very little custom parts or systems. Most gear sent into space is custom designed for the task (down to custom circuits, boards, and even processors). The Mars rovers were the first project to use COTS hardware (I believe their modems were COTS for example), and it saved a bunch compared with how they would usually build a similar system.

So yes, building this with available components and not using custom-designed circuit boards and parts could significantly save money.

Re:Huh?

[MassiveForces]

Good point, especially since "an Orbital Sciences Corporation Minotaur IV launch vehicle" doesn't sound like it would fit very well on the average shelf.

Re:Huh?

[CBob]

Simple version - R&D costs limited to "will this work in that config?", they don't have to develop much beyond a wiring harness & "air frame" to bolt it to.

Software issues can cripple this sort of project, but nowhere near as much as feature creep could.

Re:Huh?

[xzaph]

Yep. In essence, the main drawback to COTS parts is the need to verify whether they'll still function within the parameters of the environment to which they're being sent. Highly temperature-sensitive circuits, for instance, would not be a good COTS part to use in a spacecraft.

Re:Huh?

[LarryRiedel]

Sometimes it seems to me like the "shelf" is very small and new for a lot of "COTS" components... as in the vendor may have never actually sold or even built one, but they figure somebody might want it, so they say they have it, and then they somehow manage to have no units available for evaluation, and the lead time for getting the component is several months. I figure this is because almost all govt acquisition guidelines call for the use of "COTS" components.

Why aren't governments doing this

[Chrisq]

This is a very small spend (in terms of space missions), quite within the capability of Europe and Japan, let alone, China, Russia and the USA. By the anticipated launch date India may even have the capability. Since this very small spend, and will give us an early warning as to whether a very large project to deflect the asteroid is needed, I am surprised that an "interest group" like the planetary society are the people looking into it. Maybe their costings will give some impetus to some country to achieve it.

Great, it's done...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll let Bruce Willis know.

Another Asteriod Mission

[Esteanil]

I really do wonder if it's within the scope of today's technology to take one of these asteroids and guide it into earth orbit. For instance using small nuclear devices to prod it carefully to where it should be.

Because an easy source of raw materials in orbit would certainly make a lot of things a *lot* more interesting, considering the price of lifting such materials to orbit.

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[PrescriptionWarning]

only problem is the price of screwing up, I mean didn't you see Deep Impact?

unfortunately I did, for the love of god DO NOT WATCH THAT MOVIE! IT BURNSSSSSSS!

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[TheRealMindChild]

While that sounds dandy from a I-want-to-do-the-least-work-possible approach (which I am not necessarily condemning), the consequences of another "moon" may not be all that apparent up front. Tides would certainly change, possibly affecting coastlines. Whales and such would get confused. It would start raining cats and dogs. MASS HYSTERIA!

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuclear warheads aren't really the best way to "steer" asteroids. Ask Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_deflection_strategies

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[utnapistim]

I really do wonder if it's within the scope of today's technology to take one of these asteroids and guide it into earth orbit. For instance using small nuclear devices to prod it carefully to where it should be.

I believe this to be prohibitive, not because of guiding and asteroid would be impossible, but because for a earth orbit you'd have to slow it down a lot.

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[MMC Monster]

While that sounds dandy from a I-want-to-do-the-least-work-possible approach (which I am not necessarily condemning), the consequences of another "moon" may not be all that apparent up front. Tides would certainly change, possibly affecting coastlines. Whales and such would get confused. It would start raining cats and dogs. MASS HYSTERIA! Okay. But is there any downside?

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[icebrain]

I think the asteroid is rather small to be causing big tidal effects. It's only 200-300m or so, if I'm remembering right.

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[Maximum Prophet]

That's easy, you just skim the atmosphere just enough to slow it down, but not so much that it crashes to earth.

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[Kamokazi]

But then we'll have lots of people living in massive space colonies to mine the asteroids and then will eventually feel oppressed by the people living on Earth whose souls are weighted down by gravity and give birth to a revolting faction that will develop giant robots and use psychic pilots and start many wars where they usually try to drop these colonies and asteroids onto Earth.

That or I've been watching way too much Anime.

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[HTH NE1]

But if it comes hurtling between the Earth and the Moon, it will unleash cosmic destruction. Man's civilization will be cast in ruin. It will take two thousand years for Earth to be reborn, a strange new world rising from the old. A world of savagery, super-science, and sorcery.

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[HTH NE1]

That's easy, you just skim the atmosphere just enough to slow it down, but not so much that it crashes to earth. Nor any bits break off big enough to survive re-entry.

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[SuperBanana]

Because an easy source of raw materials in orbit would certainly make a lot of things a *lot* more interesting, considering the price of lifting such materials to orbit

1)The nuclear devices would cause EM pulses if they were too close to the earth

2)To be large enough to be useful, it would influence tides (and the moon's orbit) ever so slightly- enough to present significant problems in the long haul. It would also influence the orbit of everything *else* orbiting the earth.

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweet zombie jesus. Skim the atmosphere?!? The US can't even count voting ballots accurately, and you expect them to be able to pull off an asteriod atmosphere skimming trick? Ha!

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[frogzilla]

"Tides would certainly change"

Just how large a body do think the author was writing about?

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[Anonymous Coward]

Because an easy source of raw materials in orbit would certainly make a lot of things a *lot* more interesting, considering the price of lifting such materials to orbit. We don't lift raw materials to orbit, we lift processed materials to orbit. That is probably still cheaper then sticking an asteroid in orbit and then lifting a materials processing plant to orbit.

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[Anonymous Coward]

Mass of Luna: 7.3477 × 10^22 kg
Mass of Apophis: 2.6 × 10^10 kg

Say we parked Apophis in geosynchronous orbit (42 164 000 m above the center of the Earth). That's about a hundred times closer than the average distance of Luna from the same point (384 400 000 m). However, Apophis is a little more than 10^12 times less massive than the moon, and the smaller mass matters a lot more than the smaller radius.

(Yes, I did look up the gravitational equation. Yes, I did actually run the numbers. This being Slashdot, yes, I'm comfortable with admitting that.)

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[businessnerd]

I think you've got the makings of the next great sci-fi movie. Dystopian futures seem to always play well, sci-fi or not. Just look at Matrix, Blade Runner, even Children of Men (such a good movie). If you can get me a script, we're in business.

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[Nyeerrmm]

I'd guess that its within feasibility, but it would be overly expensive. First you've got to figure out where it is, which is known to a few kilometers I believe, and then you propogate that forward based on known forces.

Without adding some kind of thruster, we only know the position during the 2029 close approach to within, a few thousand kilometers (at which point it can't hit the Earth within its 3-sigma probability, but may hit a keyhole), and the perturbation caused by the Earth at that point makes it so that on the next go-round in 2036 the 3-sigma ellipse is tens of thousands of kilometers wide (with the Earth being only ~6400 km wide). Clearly its not a trivial celestial mechanics problem to do something as complex as nudging it into Earth orbit; any process to do so would have to be begun years earlier and be done with long-burning, low-thrust devices (e.g. ion thrusters).

Also, looking at the amount of force required to move an object that size even in a relatively long-term way is non-trivial. I think some numbers that got ran, trying to nudge it 600 meters (out of a gravitiational keyhole) within a 7 year period required a 4 newtons of thrust constantly for those 7 years, which while not impossible, is far beyond anything current ion thrusters have done. It would probably require a brand new design, with the associated testing for durability, and some kind of in-situ resource utilization so that you don't have to carry 7 years worth of fuel. Of course, if you start earlier your requirements may drop significantly, but still non-trivial.

Having said that, and acknowledging that it could cost hundreds of billions, I'd say lets do it, I've always been an advocate of asteroid mining and colonies, much more than the moon and Mars. I think you could make a business case given all the resources available there.

(I'm an Aerospace Eng. helping out with a class trying to design a very similar Apophis tracking mission, so I have some experience with the details of what dealing with it entails.)

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[CrimsonAvenger]

2)To be large enough to be useful, it would influence tides (and the moon's orbit) ever so slightly- enough to present significant problems in the long haul. It would also influence the orbit of everything *else* orbiting the earth.

Large enough to be useful? Let's see. We've put how many millions of tons in Earth orbit since the dawn of the Space Age? 0.01? Less than that?

So, let's imagine the potential value of a 300m diameter ball of nickel-iron in Earth orbit. Hmm, calculator says that that's 100 million tons of steel. More than 10000 times as much as we've put in orbit to date.

Do you really believe that increasing the available material in Earth Orbit by a factor or 10000 or so would not be "large enough to be useful"? I can't imagine how it could fail to be useful, myself.

Or do you believe that 100,000,000 tons in Earth Orbit would have a meaningful effect on tides or the orbits of anything else in Earth Orbit? Hmmm, tides...that would alter the net tidal effect by ONE PERCENT if it were in an orbit 4500 meters high. Of course, it would hit a lot of mountains each orbit, so I doubt we'd worry much about tides in that case.

Note, by the way, that I am not suggesting that Apophis is nickel-iron. I have no (if you'll excuse the pun) Earthly idea what it's made of. I just used an asteroid of that size for illustrative purposes.

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[SETIGuy]

Mass of Luna: 7.3477 × 10^22 kg
Mass of Apophis: 2.6 × 10^10 kg

Say we parked Apophis in geosynchronous orbit (42 164 000 m above the center of the Earth). That's about a hundred times closer than the average distance of Luna from the same point (384 400 000 m). However, Apophis is a little more than 10^12 times less massive than the moon, and the smaller mass matters a lot more than the smaller radius.

(Yes, I did look up the gravitational equation. Yes, I did actually run the numbers. This being Slashdot, yes, I'm comfortable with admitting that.) You don't even need to look up the gravitational equation in that case. If you put it in geosynchronous orbit any tidal effect is going to be static, even if the mass is large.

The gravitational equation isn't quite the right one to use. "Tidal forces" are the radial derivative of the gravitational force, so in effect tidal forces are a 1/r^3 force rather than a 1/r^2 force. So the tidal force per unit mass is about 760 times larger at geosynch than at lunar orbit, but since the mass is 3x10^12 times less, you're still talking about essentially no effect.

Even in low earth orbit tides from Apophis would be unmeasurable.

Re:Another Asteriod Mission

[Kamokazi]

Sure thing, as long as you don't mind a little plagarism.

unlucky for some...

[owlnation]

While my scientific rational mind realizes it's just a coincidence... the fact that the date Apophis is due to come dangerously close to (or possibly hit) the Earth in 2036 is April the 13th causes me some niggling concern.

By "tag" in this context do we perchance mean "nuke into oblivion"... just asking...

Re:unlucky for some...

[CBob]

We're trying for Mid-Pacific impact on 13 April, but there's some remaining flight instability due to the off center mass concentrations of the projectile.

Re:unlucky for some...

[wattrlz]

Is that a friday?

Re:unlucky for some...

[HTH NE1]

No, it's a Sunday.

I have an even better way to get to the asteroid

[master_p]

...simple: shoot it down so as that it lands on Earth.

It could be interactive

[SgtChaireBourne]

It could be quite an interactive project, albeit not in the way intended.

Perhaps it is a typo or the authors meant to avoid confusing the PHBs with 'technical' jargon like SSH, SFTP, and HTTPS. Page 28 of the document clearly says that FTP and Telnet are used. FTP will be used for data transfer to and from the satellite and that telnet is involve in the command and control.

Looks like Lunar Lander needs to add an option for NEO Asteroid, so that the first one to get in doesn't use all the fuel on the first try...

Re:It could be interactive

[icebrain]

Perhaps it is a typo or the authors meant to avoid confusing the PHBs with 'technical' jargon like SSH, SFTP, and HTTPS I know a few of the guys that wrote this, and I'm pretty sure they aren't intending simple, easy-to-hack communications protocols. They're aerospace and mechanical engineers, not IT or network types--but I'm quite sure they know such systems need to be secure. Telnet and FTP are more recognizable to the layperson (and PHBs, and beancounters), and I guess an argument could be made that SSH and SFTP are kind of like subsets of those, in a way. Overall, they probably went with the "simple" versions to emphasize OTS stuff as opposed to a custom-designed or very specialized communications protocol. And besides, I'd expect the actual radio signals to be encrypted, maybe as a "wrapper" around the FTP/Telnet-style data.

On a side note, this was the same thing we had to do for our senior design projects last year. IMO, our concept was cooler (with implantable seismometers and explosive charges to map the interior), but their proposal is obviously a lot better and more professional.

Re:I have an even better way to get to the asteroi

[joaommp]

The US military seems to be getting some practice in shooting down outworld objects...

Mayan Calendar... almost

[Anonymous Coward]

So my first thought was isn't 2029 the end of the Mayan calendar....
But Google came to the rescue and the Mayan calendar actually ends on 2012... oh well.
I guess I have to find another coincedental date of importance.... Did Nostradomus predict something for 2029?

Re:Mayan Calendar... almost

[Cr0vv]

Check this out. http://youtube.com/watch?v=KHH1pB9LOgg There is about 18 parts (short films). Also check out my comment entitled: "Nibiru" below, it's completely related. Cr0vv.

Can we capture it?

[dl107227]

It would be nice if we could nudge it into an orbit around Earth. That way we would have a handy counterweight available for a space elevator.

Executive Summary

[Atticka]

Executive summary from the the linked PDF:

The Foresight spacecraft is a concept design for a radio tagging mission to Near Earth
Asteroid (NEO) Apophis. The spacecraft is designed to be a low-cost, low-risk, minimal
science mission in order to achieve the goal of obtaining accurate tracking information for
Apophis. The baseline spacecraft mission includes a launch from Wallops Island, Virginia on
an Orbital Sciences Corporation Minotaur IV launch vehicle. Five launch windows have
been identified spanning the years 2012 to 2014. The mission requires a chemical propulsive
transfer vehicle to perform the outbound burn to Apophis (3,600 m/s) with the Foresight
encounter spacecraft performing a portion of the Earth departure, and the Apophis capture
burn (total less than 2,400 m/s). The mass of the Foresight spacecraft is 220 kg (propulsive
transfer vehicle of 1,387 kg). The Foresight spacecraft is powered by solar arrays augmented
by rechargeable batteries; the transfer vehicle is powered by onboard batteries. The
Spacecraft has two main instruments, a multi-spectral imager and laser altimeter, which
over a span of 300 days reduces the ±3 error ellipse of Apophis' trajectory ("keyhole" or bplace
encounter) in 2029 to 6.0 kilometers by 2017. The spacecraft leverages off the shelf
technologies where possible, incorporating leaner approaches to spacecraft design. The total
cost for this mission is estimated to be $137.2 M ($94.2 M for spacecraft and instrument
development and acquisition, $21 M for operations, and $22 M for the launch vehicle).
Overall system reliability is estimated to be 90.2%. The Foresight spacecraft is a low cost
asteroid spacecraft mission that can be implemented with low risk in order to obtain detailed
information on the future orbital trajectory of Apophis.

OTC

[stormguard2099]

I heard another cost cutting measure was to fill the medkits with OverTheCounter drugs instead of prescriptions. Godspeed!

Re:Another Asteroid Mission

[HTH NE1]

Wasn't that a historical drama about legislation legalizing prostitution management?

great

[TwoTonTambo]

Let's mess with one of the objects closest to Earth. Murphy's Law is itching for a new corollary.
T3

downside to another moon

[The Queen]

Well, at the risk of getting gross (and sacrificing karma), I have to wonder how a 'second moon' would affect menstrual cycles. Twice a month? There's your downside!

It's obvious what we need to do...

[Minus-A]

We need to put a barrier between us and the Egyptian worldsnake.

Are Bruce, Clint and Robert available?

[kimgkimg]

Sounds like a mission for Bruce Willis, Clint Eastwood and Robert Duvall...

$100 million probe vs telescope time

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't a mission that anyone should expect to be flown because we already have a pretty good idea of Apophis' orbit, and we have another 20 years to use telescopes and radars to nail it down for certain before it next potentially presents a risk to earth. Sending a probe would be more accurate, and allow some added science besides, but it appears that we can get "good enough" measurements from earth to determine if it's a real threat.

I don't think the Planetary Society is really pushing much for this to be turned into a real mission, but rather the contest was intended to spur a closer look at low cost technologies. Notice however, that the second place mission was around $400 million...about the same price as NASA's MESSENGER mission to Mercury.

Cool! A Minnie Driver/Anne Hathaway love scene!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

If the asteroid is known to be coming close, but missing, with high certainty, please do not "tag" it until after it goes by, thx bie.