Managers assigned to the development of NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission, a precursor to the agency’s human Mars exploration plans, believe they can place two astronauts launched aboard a Space Launch System/Orion combination in proximity to a 20-ton boulder robotically plucked from an asteroid and maneuvered into lunar orbit by the end of 2025.
Earlier this month, the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory issued a request for proposals that seeks concept studies from industry for a large spacecraft bus for the Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission (ARRM), the first phase of the complex endeavor that would launch in December 2020.
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