Abstract
President Obama has recently declared that NASA will pursue a crewed mission to an asteroid by 2025. This paper identifies the optimum target candidates of near-Earth objects (NEOs) for a first crewed mission between 2018 and 2030. Target asteroids in the NEO database with orbital elements that meet predetermined requirements are analyzed for mission design. System architectures are then proposed to meet the requirements for five designated NEO candidates. Additional technology which can be applied to crewed NEO missions in the future is also discussed, and a previous NEO target selection study is analyzed. Although some development of heavy launch vehicles is still required for the first NEO mission, design examples show that a first mission can be achieved by 2025. The Ares V and the Orion CEV are used as the baseline system architecture for this study.
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