NASA Logo

NTRS

NTRS - NASA Technical Reports Server

Back to Results
Reducing the Risk and Improving Mission Success for NASA's Human Mission to a Near-Earth Asteroid: How Many Robotic Surveyors?NASA's recent attention and interest in sending a human mission to land on a Near-Earth asteroid raises the question of need for a robotic surveyor. This paper describes a Bayesian approach for comparing the productivity and cost-risk tradeoffs of sending (versus not sending) one or more robotic surveyor missions prior to a human mission to land on an asteroid. The probability of finding an asteroid suitable for landing was derived from an analysis of more than 1200 asteroids in order to define a quantitative estimate of suitability. The low cost of the surveyors relative to the human mission underlined the multi-surveyor strategy as relatively inexpensive insurance against the risks of encountering an unsuitable asteroid for landing on arrival by a human mission.
Document ID
20120015820
Acquisition Source
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Document Type
Conference Paper
External Source(s)
Authors
Smith, Jeffrey H.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Lincoln, William P.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Weisbin, Charles R.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Date Acquired
August 26, 2013
Publication Date
September 27, 2011
Subject Category
Space Sciences (General)
Meeting Information
Meeting: AIAA SPACE 2011 Conference and Exposition
Location: Long Beach, CA
Country: United States
Start Date: September 27, 2011
End Date: September 29, 2011
Sponsors: American Inst. of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
decision analysis
optimizing number of survyors
man space flght
Near-Earth Asteroid

Available Downloads

There are no available downloads for this record.
No Preview Available