University of Maryland students are racing to build a spacecraft to study an asteroid that will pass closer to Earth than some of the satellites currently orbiting the planet. They just need help to funding it.
The asteroid is called Apophis. It’s about the size of the Eiffel Tower 鈥� and on April 13, 2029, it’s expected to make an extraordinarily close pass by Earth. So close that people in Europe and Africa will be able to see it soaring through the sky. It won鈥檛 land here, but if it did crash into Earth, it would have the impact of hundreds of nuclear bombs going off at once.
Since that would be bad for humanity, a project called Terp Raptor (Terrapin Engineered Rideshare Probe for Rapid-response Asteroid Apophis Profiling, Tracking, Observing and Reconnaissance) has brought a group of undergrad and graduate students together to study Apophis, and how to prepare for an asteroid that might not miss.
鈥淲e live in a cosmic shooting gallery,鈥� said Adrian Rudolph, a PhD student in aerospace engineering at UMD and the student principal investigator for Terp Raptor. 鈥淭here are asteroids and comets whirring around us all the time, but space is really big, so for something to get this close is incredibly rare. We want to give people the chance to, for lack of better phrasing, look the beast in the eye.鈥�
That鈥檚 what Terp Raptor will do. Rudolph and other students are building a satellite that鈥檚 about the size of a microwave. The plan is to launch it into space in 2028 so that it can fly by the asteroid ahead of time and beam information, including the sheer mass of the asteroid, back here before it gets too close.
鈥淲hen you understand the mass of an asteroid, you can calculate, if it were to impact the Earth, for example, what kind of energy would it have, what kind of destruction capability does it have,鈥� Rudolph said. 鈥淎steroid mass helps us to be able to learn about impacts, how to mitigate potential threats, if we need to. So if we see that there’s an asteroid coming at us and we need to either deflect it or disrupt it or blow it up, we know how much spacecraft mass to hit it with, to knock it off its course.鈥�
If it sounds like the prep work needed for when the 1990s movie Armageddon becomes more fact than fiction, you鈥檙e right. But the project needs financial help lifting off.
鈥淲e estimate that we need around $1.2 million total in cost, which is pretty low for a space mission of this size, but it’s still a lot,鈥� said Elena Wu, a freshman project manager with Terp Raptor. 鈥淎nd so we’re looking for funding from different sources.鈥�
A lot of that funding is in place, and the team has secured lab space at NASA Goddard. A meeting with the president of the University of Maryland could also bring more good news.
鈥淓verything is done at this point in terms of the design,鈥� said Tyler Autrey, the structure team lead who’s in charge of the design and manufacturing of the actual satellite. 鈥淲e just need the components.鈥�
But they still need to raise about $300,000 more. If you ever wanted to go into space, but would settle for having your name on board, .
鈥淲e’re looking to launch quarter two of 2028 and we ideally would get there in December of 2028,鈥� Rudolph said. 鈥淎 few months ahead of whenever it makes its closest approach. And the flyby is very quick. We’ll be traveling about four kilometers per second relative to the asteroid. So, pretty fast.鈥�
Terp Raptor isn’t the only mission eyeing Apophis.
Rudolph said the European Space Agency and NASA have their own plans to study the asteroid. They just happen to have a bit more funding.
Rudolph and her group are relying on Launch UMD, which is essentially a crowdfunding page for student-led projects. If this project makes it into space, all the information and conclusions gleaned from the fly-by will be public knowledge by the time people can see Apophis skimming close to Earth.
鈥淲e want to get those images back and that data back so people can understand what they’re looking at whenever they do see it in the sky on April 13,鈥� 2029, said Rudolph.
鈥淥ne day there will be an asteroid that does have our name on it, and we want to be prepared for that,鈥� Rudolph said. 鈥淪o we are not out here to do anything to Apophis, except go out and explore and learn more about it.
鈥淎ll of that data is good for planetary defense, planetary science and even asteroid mining prospecting,鈥� she added. 鈥淭here are asteroid mining companies in the industry that would like to know all of these features about asteroids, so they can say, 鈥楬ey, is this a metallic asteroid? Does this one have water? Are these worth mining?鈥� So it’s also good for resource prospecting.鈥�
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