NASA Developing Comet Harpoon For Sample Return 49
An anonymous reader writes "NASA appears to have decided that the best way to grab a sample of a rotating comet that is racing through the inner solar system at up to 150,000 miles per hour while spewing chunks of ice, rock and dust may be to avoid the risky business of landing on it. Instead, researchers want to send a spacecraft to rendezvous with a comet, then fire a harpoon to rapidly acquire samples from specific locations with surgical precision while hovering above the target."
Re:Why stop there... (Score:4, Informative)
That would take a lot of reaction mass. More likely the comet takes the probe on a Nantucket sleighride.
ESA's Rosetta mission (Score:5, Informative)
While this is certainly interesting technology for future missions, it's worth remembering (as the original NASA article indeed does), that the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission was launched back in 2004 and is already en-route to its rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in May 2014. It will "orbit" the comet and observe it as it returns to the inner solar system through 2014 and 2015.
But it will also deploy a small lander called Philae which will use two harpoons and then drills to "dock" with the comet (you don't really land on something with such low surface gravity) and sample the surface material in situ. As the NASA article points out, Philae's harpoon doesn't collect samples itself and, of course, Philae can only land at one location, carefully chosen to be safe through prior close-up observations by the main Rosetta spacecraft. But still, this is actually going to be done real soon now ...
Rosetta is currently in hibernation out several astronomical units from the Sun on a trajectory that'll have it meet up with the comet. There's insufficient sunlight out there to power the whole spacecraft, but enough for an alarm clock that should (!) go off in January 2014 when it's close enough to both Sun and comet to begin full operations.
So, looking forward to an exciting ride in 2014-2015, ringside seat right alongside a comet as it heats up and sheds material ...
I wonder... (Score:4, Informative)
I wonder if anyone at NASA has heard the term "Nantucket Sleigh Ride"?