Asteroid Redirect Mission FAST Draft Report Available for Public Comment
The Formulation Assessment and Support Team (FAST) for the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM)Draft Report has been released for public comment.
The Formulation Assessment and Support Team (FAST) for the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) was a two-month effort that NASA chartered to provide timely inputs for mission requirement formulation in support of the Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission (ARRM) Requirements Closure Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM) in mid-December of 2015. Following the ARM FAST’s two-month study with 18 participants, NASA has released a draft report for public comment:
ARM FAST Draft Report for Public Comment
Comments on the report should be emailed to the FAST leadership at: HQ-ARM-FAST@mail.nasa.gov
Comments received by 11:59 p.m. EST, Dec. 4, 2015, will be considered for additional inputs to the final document, expected to be published in January 2016.
The first section of the report provides details including the purpose of the FAST, an overview of the ARM, a summary of the study request, and information about the FAST selection process and membership. Eighteen participants were selected from the 100 applications received from highly qualified individuals representing academia, industry, NASA, non-profit research institutes, and other organizations.
The second section of this report includes responses to a set of high-priority questions that were derived from the Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission (ARRM) engineering team’s risk analysis and were needed to help design and develop the ARRM mission, spacecraft and capture system. The responses were formulated to support the ARRM Requirements Closure Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM) planned to be held in mid-December of 2015. The questions have been grouped into seven topics:
– Origin of 2008 EV5
– Boulder Spatial and Size Distributions
– Surface Geotechnical Properties
– Boulder Physical Properties
– Post Collection Boulder Handling
– Pre-ARM Crew Mission Boulder Assessments for Crew Safety
– Containment Considerations
The third section of the report includes an initial list of potential investigations that could be performed by the ARM. The list is not intended to be inclusive of all possibilities, but is meant to aid formulation and development of the ARRM, and reflect the FAST members’ experience and expertise in small bodies missions and knowledge related to science, planetary defense, asteroidal resources and in-situ resource utilization (ISRU), and relevant capabilities and technologies.
The fourth section of this report includes a listed of additional findings by the FAST in combination with public input, and the fifth section provides a summary of relevant public inputs and comments received to date by the FAST.
Comments to the report will be accepted until 11:59 p.m. EST, Dec. 4, 2015. Send your comments to HQ-ARM-FAST@mail.nasa.gov.
