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Characterizing near-Earths asteroids (NEAs) is critical if we hope to eventually stop one from hitting us. But so far, missions to do so have been expensive, which is never good for space exploration. So a team led by Patrick Bambach of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany developed a mission concept that utilizes a relatively inexpensive 6U CubeSat (or, more accurately, two of them) to characterize the interior of NEAs that would cost only a fraction of the price of previous missions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n The mission, known as the Deep Interior Scanning CubeSat mission to a rubble pile near-Earth asteroid, or DISCUS, was initially floated in 2018. Its central architecture involves two separate 6U CubeSats equipped with a powerful radar. They would travel to opposite sides of an NEA and direct a radar to pass through the NEA\u2019s interior.<\/p>\n To understand more about the mission architecture, it\u2019s best to look at the type of asteroid best suited to being visited by DISCUS. The authors suggest one about the size of Itokawa, the target of the first Hayabusa mission. It\u2019s about 330 meters in diameter, right in the size range the mission planners were looking for, and is designated as a \u201crubble pile,\u201d meaning the interior is relatively sparse.<\/p>\n \n