* Astronomy

Title: On the rotation rates and axis ratios of the smallest known near-Earth asteroids---the archetypes of the Asteroid Redirect Mission targets
Author: Patrick Hatch, Paul Wiegert

NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) has been proposed with the aim to capture a small asteroid a few meters in size and redirect it into an orbit around the Moon. There it can be investigated at leisure by astronauts aboard an Orion or other spacecraft. The target for the mission has not yet been selected, and there are very few potential targets currently known. Though sufficiently small near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) are thought to be numerous, they are also difficult to detect and characterize with current observational facilities. Here we collect the most up-to-date information on the smallest known near-Earth asteroids to outline the properties of these small NEAs as currently understood, in order to examine what the eventual ARM target might be like. Observational biases certainly mean that our sample is not an ideal representation of the true population of small NEAs. However our sample is representative of the eventual target list for the ARM mission, which will be compiled under very similar observational constraints unless dramatic changes are made to the way near-Earth asteroids are searched for and studied.
We find that the typical rotation period is 40 minutes. The mean and median axis ratios were 1.43 and 1.29. Rotation rates much faster than the spin barrier are seen, reaching below 30 seconds, and implying that most of these bodies are monoliths. Non-principal axis rotation is uncommon. Axial ratios often reach values as high as two, though no undisputed results reach above three. We find little correlation of axis ratio with size. The most common spectral type in the sample of small NEAs is S-type (> 90%), with only a handful of C and X types known.

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NASA Announces Next Steps on Journey to Mars: Progress on Asteroid Initiative

NASA Wednesday announced more details in its plan for its Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), which in the mid-2020s will test a number of new capabilities needed for future human expeditions to deep space, including to Mars. NASA also announced it has increased the detection of near-Earth Asteroids by 65 percent since launching its asteroid initiative three years ago.
For ARM, a robotic spacecraft will capture a boulder from the surface of a near-Earth asteroid and move it into a stable orbit around the moon for exploration by astronauts, all in support of advancing the nation's journey to Mars.
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