Janus Satellite to Explore Binary Asteroid
Janus: Reconnaissance Missions to Binary Asteroids
Launch Vehicle: SpaceX Falcon Heavy (secondary payload on Psyche mission)
Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.
Launch Date: July 2022
NASA Program: Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx)
Description
Janus: Reconnaissance Missions to Binary Asteroids will study the formation and evolutionary implications for small “rubble pile” asteroids and build an accurate model of two binary asteroid bodies. A binary asteroid is a system of two asteroids orbiting their common center of mass.
The principal investigator is Daniel Scheeres at the University of Colorado. Lockheed Martin will provide project management.
SIMPLEx
Using small spacecraft – less than 400 pounds, or 180 kilograms, in mass – SIMPLEx selections will conduct stand-alone planetary science missions. Each will share their ride to space with either another NASA mission or a commercial launch opportunity.
Janus will be managed by the Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama as part of the Solar System Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
3 responses to “Janus Satellite to Explore Binary Asteroid”
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Interesting – looks like Janus will do flybys of two different binary asteroid pairs, specifically, 1991 VH (a non-synchronous binary, the primary being an S-type) and 1996 FG3 (a stable synchronous binary pair, the primary being a C-type). 1991 Van Halen is currently in an evolving chaotic state (true, from what I remember), so these two examples should provide some interesting contrasts
https://www.lpi.usra.edu/sb…
I wonder if binary asteroids could be tethered together so as to get 1g at the inner surface of the smaller of the two bodies if they were bagged and winched closer together–so as to extract some energy.
Yeah. We could call it BOLO (Binary Objects Linked, Occupied).