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Design and Science Instrumentation of an Unmanned Vehicle for Sample Return from the Asteroid Eros

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

H. F. Meissinger  and
E. W. Greenstadt
H. F. Meissinger
Affiliation:
TRW, Inc.
E. W. Greenstadt
Affiliation:
TRW, Inc.

Extract

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Unmanned missions to the asteroids have been proposed and investigated as part of the overall plan of exploration of the solar system. A principal incentive for landing on an asteroid and retrieving a surface sample for return to Earth is the expectation that detailed laboratory analysis of the sample material’s chemical composition, crystal structure, surface texture, magnetic characteristics, radioactive state, and age can provide essential clues, not available by other means, to the origin of asteroids and possibly the history and formative processes of the solar system (Alfvén and Arrhenius, 1910a,b; Bratenahl; Friedlander and Vickers, 1964; IIT Research Institute, 1964; Öhman, 1963). The results may indicate, for example, to what extent accretion or fragmentation processes have been involved in the formation of asteroids.

Type
Part III-Possible Space Missions and Future Work
Information
International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 12: Physical Studies of Minor Planets , 1971 , pp. 543 - 560
Copyright
Copyright © NASA 1971

References

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