New NASA Challenge: Asteroid Redirect Mission

NASA announced yesterday that they're accepting proposals for advanced technology development in order to get the ball rolling for their Asteroid Redirect Mission.

Officials plan to provide further updates regarding the mission on March 26 during the Asteroid Initiative Opportunities Forum at NASA Headquarters. In the meantime, they hope to receive proposals for concept studies in a variety of fields, including asteroid capture systems, rendezvous sensors, commercial spacecraft adaption, and partnership opportunities for secondary payloads and crewed missions.

The asteroid-capture mission that NASA plans to execute will drag a space rock into orbit around the moon for future visitation by astronauts, according to Space.com. The proposals for this mission are due by May 5 and officials say they will accept a maximum of 25 submissions, contributing $6 million in all. They hope to achieve the goals of the mission by 2025.

"As NASA continues to make great progress refining our mission concepts, we're reaching out to seek new and innovative ideas as we extend the frontier of space exploration," said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington, in a press release. "We're looking forward to exciting ideas from outside NASA as well to help realize that vision." 

NASA seeks to keep costs as low as possible, which is why they're looking to establish outside and private partnerships for this mission, as well as future Mars missions. The Asteroid Initiative includes two sub-operations: the Asteroid Grand Challenge and the Asteroid Redirect Mission. The Asteroid Grand Challenge will evaluate and accept proposals for new parterships and collaborations. The actual redirect mission will be executed once that phase is complete.

The Asteroid Initiative Opportunities Forum will take place from 12:30 p.m. - 4:40 p.m. at the James E. Webb Auditorium on March 26. You can register online as a virtual participant.

To read more about the Asteroid Grand Challenge, visit this NASA press release as well as this Space.com article.