posted 12-27-2006 12:08 PM               

Orion Hardware Reviewed For Human Asteroid Flight

Progress is being made on defining a human mission to an asteroid. Experts at several NASA centers are sketching out a prospective piloted stopover at an asteroid--a trek that could return samples from a targeted space rock as well as honing astronaut proficiency and test needed equipment for other space destinations.

At the heart of such a mission is drawing upon the technology of NASA's Constellation initiative--the overarching program that is gearing up to extend human presence at the Moon, on Mars and beyond. One key ingredient is the Orion spacecraft--a post-Space Shuttle vehicle now under design to thrust crews further than low Earth orbit.

posted 12-22-2007 12:07 PM               

Popular Science: NASA's New Target

Here we are, nearly eight years into the 21st century, and the most spectacular manned mission NASA can pull off is a trip to the International Space Station, a mere 210 miles above the Earth. Even the most ambitious part of NASA's current plans for human spaceflight involves visiting a celestial body we've already been to: the moon. Astronauts, space buffs and an unimpressed public hunger for space exploration that's more dramatic, more heroic, more new. Something like, say, landing astronauts on a distant rock hurtling through space at 15 miles per second.

posted 05-18-2008 11:16 AM               

Astronaut Tom Jones says that by 2020, China and/or Russia may already be on the moon (debatable). Instead of going there, Orion could wave on the way by and say, "Been there, done that" on it's way to visit an asteroid.

posted 08-17-2009 10:20 PM               

A manned asteroid mission using two Orion spacecraft, docked nose-to-nose to form a 50-ton deep space vehicle, is being studied by Lockheed Martin Space Systems as an alternative to resumption of U.S. lunar landing missions.

The Orion asteroid mission concept is being unveiled just as the Presidential committee reviewing U.S. human space flight is citing asteroid missions after 2020 as a less costly alternative to NASA's proposed lunar landing infrastructure. Results of the review will be briefed to President Obama by Norman Augustine, committee chairman, by the end of August.

The docked Orion configuration as shown in a Lockheed Martin graphic would have a total of four large solar arrays and two service modules as well as two command modules for extra space on the several week flight. Single 25-ton Orion spacecraft would first be used to replace the space shuttle for servicing the International Space Station. But use of them for asteroid missions and other deep space sites would maximize utilization of the Orion system if lunar landings are deleted as a near term goal.