Manned mission to an asteroid

A human mission to an asteroid is one of the long-term goals of astronautics. The near-Earth asteroids are the target of such a mission, due to their proximity to the Earth.

A human mission to an asteroid would be a new step in the history of spaceflight, by sending astronauts the Moon's orbit where a previous robotic mission called Asteroid Redirect Mission would place a retrieved asteroid.

President Barack Obama announced on 15 April 2010 that the project of a human mission to an asteroid became a new goal for 2025. This statement was announced after his proposal of cancellation of the Constellation program in February 2010, whose main objective was the return Humans to the Moon. Obama added that deep space missions could serve as a springboard for a human mission to Mars in the mid-2030s.

NASA is developing the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS) with the goal of achieving the task in Exploration Mission 2.

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