An artist's drawing of what the first probe to collect samples from an asteroid will look like. Image from NASA.
In 2016, NASA will launch the first mission to mine an asteroid and send samples back to earth.
The mission will be unmanned, and will rely on a space probe with a robotic arm to pluck samples from the asteroid 1999 RQ36 (exciting name, huh?). It’s about 1,900 feet in diameter, and hasn’t changed much since it was created, meaning it can give us clues to how our solar system formed. It’s supposed to be carbon-rich, a key element for creating life as we know it, so there’s the chance we’ll find bacteria or other primitive life forms.
The probe is named OSIRIS-REx, for Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer. It will take OSIRIS-REx about four years to reach the asteroid, and it will spend six months mapping and collecting samples. To see an animation of what the probe will look like in action, click here.
In addition to collecting physical samples, the probe will also study the asteroid’s path. Part of the reason we keep getting “asteroid X may hit us or may not sometime in the next 50 years or so” warnings is because researches still can’t accurately predict an asteroid’s orbit in the same way they can predict a planet’s. Asteroids’ irregular shapes and rotations (they don’t necessarily spin on an axis the same way that Earth does) mean that they interact differently with the sun’s gravitational pull. By studying the asteroid’s path up close, OSIRIS-REx will pin down some of these interactions, and allow us to better predict potential future collisions.
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