Much of the excitement surrounding NASA’s anticipated crewless Artemis I mission concerns testing the SLS rocket and the Orion spacecraft as pioneers of sending humans back to the moon. However, Artemis I will also launch the Near-Earth Asteroid Scout spacecraft as an impressive side mission.
NEA Scout is a small CubeSat, and NASA says it will “go after the smallest asteroid visited by a spacecraft.” His goal is to visit the 2020 GE, which is smaller than a school bus. This space rock measures less than 18 meters tall.
While visiting a small asteroid is impressive enough, the way NEA Scout will go about doing it is even more impressive. “It will get there by launching a solar sail to use solar radiation for propulsion, and this will be the first deep space mission of its kind the agency has accomplished,” NASA said in a statement.
Solar sail technology is a relatively new technology. Although the small spacecraft will use photon particles from the sun instead of the wind, we can say that sailing is an apt analogy. The Planetary Society had a successful demonstration of the technology with the LightSail 2 CubeSat in 2019.
NEA Scout’s solar sail is made from super-thin plastic-coated aluminum and will measure approximately 12 meters by 6 meters when unfolded. CubeSat itself is the size of a shoebox.
NASA plans to study the 2020 GE and find out whether it’s a single solid object or a compacted assemblage of smaller rocks. “While large asteroids are of most concern from a planetary defense perspective, objects like the 2020 GE are much more common and could pose a danger to our planet despite their smaller size,” says Julie Castillo-Rogez, principal science researcher at NEA Scout.
Artemis I is scheduled to launch this year, possibly as early as March or April. If all goes well, NEA Scout will attempt to rendezvous with its asteroid in late 2023.
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