SpaceDev said Wednesday that a team of independent reviewers has concluded that the Near Earth Asteroid Prospector (NEAP) mission design, spacecraft design, and project budget are feasible.
The Project Assessment Team was led by Tony Spear, Mars Pathfinder
Project Manager, who recently retired from NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL) after thirty years of successful deep space science
missions. The team consisted of Spear's hand picked deep space experts
from various organizations including JPL.
"We commissioned Mr. Spear's study because we believe his team consists
of some of the most respected and accomplished deep-space experts in the
world," said Jim Benson, president and chief executive officer of
SpaceDev.
The team concluded that the NEAP mission conceptual design is sound and
the mission could be flown within $50 million, including launch cost. "We
are pleased with their findings and we intend to use Mr. Spear's report as
a roadmap to complete this mission on time and within our original $50
million estimate announced in September of last year," said Benson.
Spear's team made several specific recommendations for optimizing the NEAP
spacecraft to the Nereus carbonaceous asteroid target, the new NEAP target
selected as a result of the Spear study. Mission recommendations included
possibly adding revenue-producing lunar or near-Earth payloads that could
be accommodated in the early parts of the mission, simplifying the
avionics architecture, and designing a schedule based on Spear's years of
deep space science mission experience.
"Mr. Spear recommended a pre-project phase to initiate detailed project
planning and design, project team forming, and long lead procurements,"
Benson commented. "This pre-project phase would extend from September
1998 to April 1999. At that time a two-year development phase would start,
supporting the planned launch date in April 2001."
One member of the team, Dr. Robert Farquhar of Johns Hopkins University's
Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), recommended fundamental simplifications
to the propulsion system that could result in a more reliable and less
expensive solution. Dr. Farquhar is the Mission Director of APL's Near
Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) project. He validated and refined the
mission and trajectory design work that was pioneered by Dr. Alan
Schneider at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in the early
design phases of the NEAP mission. Dr. Farquhar's input reduced deep space
cruise time by four months.
Dr. Farquhar and Dr. Donald Yeomans, a senior research scientist at JPL,
first identified Nereus as one of the most scientifically interesting
objects that NEAP could visit. The pair also performed a preliminary
analysis of the possible trajectory available to NEAP to reach Nereus and
concluded that such a mission would need relatively little fuel and little
time. Both features lead to a simpler, smaller spacecraft than was first
anticipated.
"We were truly fortunate to have so many of the world's leading
scientists and engineers provide their expertise to this mission design,
and we fully intend to utilize the advice they have provided us," added
Benson. "Overall, these recommendations, and the choice of Nereus as the
'quintessential' target asteroid have allowed us to simplify and
miniaturize the spacecraft, which we believe leads to a less expensive and
even more feasible mission. As an example, the smaller NEAP spacecraft now
being designed for Nereus can be launched by a much wider variety of
commercially available rockets, giving us greater flexibility in selecting
a low-cost launch provider."
The new NEAP orbits could include close lunar swing-bys that could serve
as excellent practice runs for operations at Nereus. The company plans to
calculate as many lunar swing-bys as possible for the nine months
available, including half-month "backflips" and double-lunar swing-by
orbits similar to those used by the ISEE-3 spacecraft in 1983. Some of the
swing-bys will be designed to fly as close to the moon as is safely
possible, and perhaps fly low over polar craters where lunar water is
believed to exist. It is intended that the injection from the parking
orbit will be directed into a high- altitude "phasing" orbit whose
apogee would be only slightly beyond the moon's orbit.
SpaceDev, the world's first commercial space exploration and development
company, intends to launch the first privately financed spacecraft to land
on another planetary body. SpaceDev is selling rides for scientific
instruments to governments and companies to transport their instruments
and experiments through deep space to a near Earth asteroid. SpaceDev
intends to sell the data acquired by its instruments as commercial
products. Colorado-based SpaceDev has offices in San Diego, CA and
Washington, DC.
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