ESA Awards $153 Million Contract For Its First Planetary Defense Mission (techcrunch.com) 20
The European Space Agency (ESA) is awarding a $153 million contract to an industry consortium led by German space company OHB. "The contract covers the 'detailed design, manufacturing and testing' of a mission codenamed 'Hera,' after the Greek goddess of marriage and the hearth, which will support NASA's Double Asteroid Redirect Test mission and help provide a path towards future planetary defense operations in space," reports TechCrunch. From the report: ESA's Hera mission will launch a desk-sized satellite, which itself will contain small CubeSats, to perform a post-impact assessment of the effect NASA's DART spacecraft has on as asteroid that it's designed to essentially smash into at high velocity. Hera is intended to navigate around the asteroid autonomously while collecting data to help scientists back here on Earth understand whether their ambitious plan has been successful, in terms of using a human-made spacecraft to intentionally impact with an asteroid and change its trajectory through space.
The CubeSats will inspect the asteroid close-up once deployed from Hera -- including a potential interior probe with a radar array, the first of its kind for an asteroid body. All told, Hera and its CubeSate companions will be spending six months studying the asteroids following their encounter with DART. NASA's mission is set to launch sometime in July, 2021, and will arrive at the pair of asteroids -- called the 'Didymos' pair -- in September the following year. The ESA's Hera mission is set to launch in October 2024, and then rendezvous with the asteroids in 2026, so there will be a considerable gap between the impact and Hera's close-up study -- time during which its effects should hopefully be apparent.
The CubeSats will inspect the asteroid close-up once deployed from Hera -- including a potential interior probe with a radar array, the first of its kind for an asteroid body. All told, Hera and its CubeSate companions will be spending six months studying the asteroids following their encounter with DART. NASA's mission is set to launch sometime in July, 2021, and will arrive at the pair of asteroids -- called the 'Didymos' pair -- in September the following year. The ESA's Hera mission is set to launch in October 2024, and then rendezvous with the asteroids in 2026, so there will be a considerable gap between the impact and Hera's close-up study -- time during which its effects should hopefully be apparent.
What could go wrong (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
So far sci-fi writers have never predicted anything accurately, yet we always fear their lunatic fear mongering predictions about technology.
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So far sci-fi writers have never predicted anything accurately, yet we always fear their lunatic fear mongering predictions about technology.
Aside from rockets, satellites, habitats in space, phones we carry with us, watches which provide information other than the time, facial recognition, lasers, paying for goods/services without cold hard cash, manipulation of genetic code, biological warfare, frozen embryos for later use, submarines and computers, you're right. Sci-fi writers have never predicted anything accurately.
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Literally all of those were thought of by scientists beforehand.
Rockets -- Tsiokovsky, and others before him (China etc).
Satellites - The first published mathematical study of the possibility of an artificial satellite was Newton's cannonball, a thought experiment in A Treatise of the System of the World by Isaac Newton (1687).
habitats in space - nonsensical, humans have been speculating on that for a long time
cell phones - In 1917, Finnish inventor Eric Tigerstedt filed a patent for a "pocket-size folding
Re: What could go wrong (Score:2)
There is, however, one thing that writers and futurists missed. The computer. And just about 3/4 of your list are technologies based on chips...
Verne knew about ballistics, electricity and so on. Nautilus is an extention of what existed. Same for the travel to the moon (though he missed rockets entirely).
But if you don't know the structure of the atom and a lot more more you can't predict semiconductors and from there modern computing.
Sure, R.U.R. came with 'robots' before all that but they were 'mechanical
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Obviously, neither of you read science fiction, you just watch superhero movies. You have no clue what it is, as a literature.
For one, IT'S FICTION. I have yet to see a single sf author, in any book, or in person, or talking to them individually, say "my story predicts what will be...."
Eat your heart out dinosaurs! (Score:2)
There's no stopping us humans now.
What I want... (Score:1)
153 Million Ain't Shit (Score:2)
A space sim for the PC costs lots more than that. If it was finished I would show it to you.
the price of everything and the value of nothing (Score:4, Interesting)
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This is just the first phase. Once this bit is proven they will develop the programme. Like how they didn't just try to land on the Moon the first time, it took many missions and many steps before Apollo 11.
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How about a big old blob of liquid explosive. Impact the asteroid and spread over the surface and then ignite when it is facing the right direction. As thin as reasonable possible across the surface to spread the detonation, reduce fracturing, just make sure the side with the stick explosive liquid remains pointed at the earth, you could thaw it before impact, a very fluid gel that will not boil off.
You could also put a nuke inside a very large block of ice, you have to get the water up there and freeze it
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So, what grade are you in, in school?
Beyond the atmosphere, space is, for all practical purposes, a vacuue. How do you think a liquid "spreads" in a vacuum?
And why do the whole thing, when you can push it? A course correction, over 10 million kilometers, is a very big change.
stretch that euro (Score:1)
Wait for the new ransomware attack. (Score:1)
cubesat? (Score:2)