The NEA Scout spacecraft with solar sail technology will “visit” an asteroid the size of a bus, with a diameter of less than 18 meters.
On January 20, NASA announced that during the Artemis I launch, another spacecraft named Near-Earth Asteroid Scout (NEA Scout) will also be heading into space. Artemis I is an uncrewed mission aimed at testing the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft, paving the way for the program to return humans to the Moon.
Illustration of the NEA Scout spacecraft with its sail deployed while flying past the target asteroid. (Image: NASA)
NEA Scout is a compact cubesat. Its solar sail is made from ultra-thin plastic-coated aluminum and will span approximately 86 square meters when fully deployed. In contrast, the cubesat itself is only the size of a shoebox.
The target of NEA Scout is 2020 GE, an asteroid estimated to be smaller than a bus, with a diameter of under 18 meters. According to NASA, this will be the smallest asteroid ever studied by a spacecraft.
NEA Scout will travel to 2020 GE by deploying its solar sail and harnessing solar radiation for propulsion. This will be NASA’s first deep space mission implemented in this manner. The solar sail technology is still relatively new. Unlike what the name suggests, the spacecraft will rely on photon particles from the Sun rather than solar wind. The Planetary Society validated this technology with the launch of the LightSail 2 in 2019.
NASA intends to study 2020 GE to determine whether it is a single solid body or a collection of tightly packed smaller rocks. “While larger asteroids are the greatest concern in terms of planetary defense, objects like 2020 GE are much more common and can pose a threat to Earth, despite their small size,” said Julie Castillo-Rogez, a scientist involved in the NEA Scout mission.
Artemis I is scheduled to launch this year, potentially as early as March or April. If all goes well, NEA Scout will reach its target asteroid by the end of 2023.
