Planetary scientist Alan Hildebrand is a leading researcher in near-Earth asteroids. (Photo by Riley Brandt)
Stop the asteroid and save the planet. This isn’t another plot for a science fiction movie but a space mission in which the University of Calgary’s Alan Hildebrand is playing a leading role.
In 2016, NASA will launch a spacecraft—OSIRIS-Rex—to a potentially offending asteroid near Earth. The spacecraft will fly for three years before it stops to map and gather samples of the asteroid before returning to Earth.
“This could re-write the textbooks. We haven’t studied this type of asteroid before and bringing back samples allows us to study them with all current and future analytical techniques,” says Hildebrand, a planetary scientist in the Faulty of Science and a leading researcher in near-Earth asteroids. He’s also the principal investigator for the Canadian contribution to the mission. Mike Daly at York University is the project’s deputy principal investigator.
This asteroid, called RQ36, could hold clues to the origin of the solar system, and the mission will also reveal new information at the heart of Hildebrand’s area of expertise.
Knowing more about this asteroid will determine if it’s headed for Earth and, if so, the information gathered on the mission will help researchers devise strategies to mitigate potential impacts from this asteroid and others.
Interaction with sunlight determines how RQ36’s orbit will evolve; this is known as the Yarkovsky effect. “We expect it will miss but if your interest is near-Earth asteroids like me, you will want to understand this effect well,” says Hildebrand. Researchers believe RQ36 has a one-in-1,800 chance of hitting the Earth in the year 2182. The OSIRIS-Rex mission will accurately measure the orbital drift.
Hildebrand’s excitement is obvious when he talks about the science behind the mission. In his cramped office, filled with piles of paper and boxes that used to house Dr. Pepper, the drink that fuels him on busy days, Hildebrand quickly finds a rock sample to demonstrate the potential colour of the asteroid—charcoal black—and points to a picture of RQ36’s unique feature, an equatorial ridge, that was formed “not too long ago”—in geologic terms that’s about a million years ago. “RQ36 recently spun up, moved material to its equator, and spun down, and the surface shape may tell us why and how it deformed.”
It will take three years for OSIRIS-Rex, short for Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer, to approach RQ36 and, once it’s about five kilometres away, it will be mapped for about six months using technology called OLA, short for OSIRIS-Rex Laser Altimeter.
OLA, funded by the Canadian Space Agency and designed by a Canadian academic and industrial team, will create a 3D image of the asteroid, estimated at about 1,900 feet in diameter, roughly the size of five football fields. OLA employs LIDAR imaging, which is used heavily in landscape mapping in the oil and gas industry. It remotely measures fine detail of a surface using pulses of laser light.
Once mapping is complete, the spacecraft will dock with the asteroid and more than 60 grams of rock will be plucked from the surface to be returned to Earth in 2023. The mission is expected to cost, excluding the launch vehicle, approximately $800 million.
“This is a critical step in meeting the objectives outlined by President Obama to extend our reach beyond low-Earth orbit and explore into deep space,” says former astronaut and NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden on the organization’s website announcing the project. “It’s robotic missions like these that will pave the way for future human space missions to an asteroid and other deep space destinations.”
Leaders in space science
By Leanne Yohemas and Eric Donovan
The fingerprints of University of Calgary researchers can be found on satellites and rockets sent to space as well as on imaging technologies that help scientists learn more about everything from the northern lights to the origin and evolution of the universe itself.
“We are Canada’s leading academic institution in space research,” says Ken Barker, dean of the Faculty of Science. “Our work is comprehensive, running the gamut from satellites through to ground-based initiatives.”
University of Calgary scientists play important—often leading—roles in many Canadian and international projects worth collectively billions of dollars. In this year alone, the University of Calgary will see at least three of its projects launched into space.
- The University of Calgary’s Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite (NEOSSat), microsatellite, will track the skies day and night approximately 700 kilometres above Earth’s atmosphere sending back early warning of potentially dangerous asteroids.
- The European Space Agency’s SWARM satellite mission will include instruments designed by University of Calgary researchers. SWARM’s goal is to provide the best-ever survey of Earth’s magnetic field and will help scientists advance our knowledge of the Earth’s interior and space environment.
- CASSIOPE, short for Cascade, Smallsat and Ionospheric Polar Exploreris, will include a suite of instruments called e-POP (Enhanced Polar Outflow Probe). This “mission within a mission” has been led by University of Calgary researchers and will collect new data on space storms in the upper atmosphere and their potentially devastating impacts on radio communications, including GPS navigation.
On the space imaging side, the University of Calgary leads Canada’s involvement in an international effort to develop the world’s biggest radio telescope, called the Square Kilometre Array.
The University of Calgary also leads the world in auroral imaging. Calgary imagers have flown on four international satellites and provided, for example, the world’s first views of the global aurora. Calgary researchers develop and deploy instruments in remote places across the North that gather images on the aurora nightly.
