VASIMR mission to asteroid?

[Dr Mordrid]

Interesting article today in Aviation Week....

Ad Astra Ponders Vasimr Mission To Asteroid

Ad Astra Rocket Co. is assessing a cooperative unmanned rendezvous mission to a yet-to-be-selected asteroid with a spacecraft and scientific payload powered by the experimental Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (Vasimr), according to Franklin Chang-Diaz, the seven-time space shuttle astronaut who serves as the company’s CEO and president.

Ad Astra’s efforts come against the backdrop of President Barack Obama’s recently announced plans for NASA to begin working toward a manned asteroid rendezvous, circa 2025, that would mark humanity’s first foray beyond the Moon (AW&ST April 19, p. 28).
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“This is all very new stuff we are discussing,” says Chang-Diaz. “The point is we have not really quite decided what to do with the second engine,” he says. “Once the first engine is up and flying, we are thinking maybe the second engine could be used in another spacecraft, a free-flyer of some sort.”
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Ad Astra was incorporated five years ago to advance the development of electric space plasma propulsion started by Chang-Diaz while he was a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and nurtured while he served in NASA’s astronaut corps between 1980 and 2005. Since leaving the space agency, Chang-Diaz has pursued commercial development under a series of Space Act agreements.

Ad Astra’s strategy is to graduate from the municipal power grid as a source of electricity to space solar power demonstrations. The ultimate goal is a 200-megawatt space nuclear reactor as the source of electricity to generate the plasma thrust for fast missions to Mars. The company would develop and lease the plasma rockets for missions that range from satellite-servicing and orbital debris removal to slinging spacecraft on accelerated deep space missions with scientific payloads and human explorers.
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[KRSESQ]

Exercise in speculation: How much fuel and how long would it take to nudge a Ceres-sized asteroid into orbit around Mars? Not necessarily Ceres but something suitably massive?

This would, of course, mess up the orbits of Phobos and Diemos. They would crash into the planet and, I suspect, deposit large amounts of ice.

But it would have the effect of generating strong tidal forces within Mars, heating the core and warming the planet.

Just need to know how big a Vasimr we need to build and then fly it there.

Kevin

[Dr Mordrid]

Ceres is actually classified as a dwarf planet, not an asteroid, and has a mass of 9.4×10^20 kg. Most of this is water, Ceres is estimated to have enough water in its surface ocean to fill the Atlantic basin. So massive it makes up about 1/3 the mass of all asteroid belt objects.

Changing its orbit even a little would be a job for the USS Enterprise, or maybe the USS Excelsior.

Some astronomers think under a thick layer ice hydrothermal vents keep much of this ocean is liquid, much like Europa and Enceladus, and with liquid water and hydrothermal vents life is always a possibility.

The DAWN mission to Ceres and Vesta is on the way using 3 ion engines. These will allow DAWN to travel to then insert into an orbit around Vesta, then do a burn back into space for a trip to Ceres and orbital insertion around it - the first time this will have been done.

Arrival at Vesta: July 2011

Arrive at Ceres: February 2015

Dawn will spend a year at Vesta then at least 6 months at Ceres, but if like the Mars rovers it's an Energizer Bunny and the data is interesting who knows?

[KRSESQ]

Yeah. It would require a constant acceleration over a LONG period of time and a constant supply of fuel (refined surface ice?) to do it.

The ideal candidate would have an orbit inclined at between 20 and 30 degrees to Mars' equator (approximately 5 - 10 degrees to the ecliptic). We'd probably have to go pretty far afield to find the right working body. Good thing much of this can be automated.

Kevin