NDLI: Strategic considerations of human exploration of Near-Earth asteroids

Content Provider	IEEE Xplore Digital Library
Author	Drake, B.G.
Copyright Year	2012
Description	Author affiliation: NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas 77058 (Drake, B.G.)
Abstract	The current United States Space Policy [1] as articulated by the White House and later confirmed by the Congress [2] affirms that “[t]he extension of the human presence from low-Earth orbit to other regions of space beyond low-Earth orbit will enable missions to the surface of the Moon and missions to deep space destinations such as near-Earth asteroids and Mars.” Human exploration of the Moon and Mars has been the focus of numerous exhaustive studies and planning, but missions to Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) has, by comparison, garnered relatively little attention in terms of mission and systems planning. This paper examines the strategic implications of human exploration of NEAs and how they can fit into the overall exploration strategy. This paper specifically addresses how accessible currently known NEAs are in terms of mission duration, technologies required, and overall architecture construct. Example mission architectures utilizing different propulsion technologies such as chemical, nuclear thermal, and solar electric propulsion were formulated to determine resulting figures of merit including number of NEAs accessible, time of flight, mission mass, number of departure windows, and length of the launch windows. These data, in conjunction with what we currently know about these potential exploration targets (or need to know in the future), provide key insights necessary for future mission and strategic planning. The analysis suggests that a human mission to a NEA is more representative of a human mission to Mars, and thus would more suitably serve as a final demonstration test of the Mars systems rather than the first human mission beyond low-Earth orbit.1, 2
Starting Page	1
Ending Page	18
File Size	1068881
Page Count	18
File Format	PDF
ISBN	9781457705564
ISSN	1095323X
e-ISBN	9781457705571
DOI	10.1109/AERO.2012.6187265
Language	English
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Publisher Date	2012-03-03
Publisher Place	USA
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Rights Holder	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subject Keyword	Propulsion Earth Space vehicles Orbits Mars Trajectory Humans
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Aerospace Engineering Space and Planetary Science

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
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