Today it was announced that the Russian space agency is looking into mounting a mission to deflect the asteroid Apophis from any hazardous Earthly encounter by minimizing the probability of an impact in future passes. While the mission represents a first in getting a national space agency to take such a mission seriously, Apohpis hardly poses the threat it was once renowned for and the Russian’s have seemingly overlooked this information.
In a statement released by the director of Roscosmos (Russian Federal Space Agency) Anatoly Perminov, he said “I don’t remember exactly, but it seems to me it could hit the Earth by 2032.”
While the asteroid does in fact pose a threat in an April 13, 2029 encounter with the Earth, the risk of impact has been ruled out as the 885 foot asteroid will pass no closer than 18,500 miles (to put that in perspective, geostationary satellites orbit at 22,000 miles). Gravitational perturbations from Earth may deflect the asteroid onto a new path that will increase the odds of impact on subsequent passes, but it is not until a 2036 pass that the odds give an even reasonable chance of impact (a 1 in 250,000 chance, up from an initial estimate of 1 in 45,000 chance.) The 2032 pass does not even amount to a blip on the radar.
The seeming lack of information that the Russians have on the issue aside, I do applaud the move as a significant recognition of the risk that asteroids pose to humanities future and our ability to prevent a cosmic apocalypse. Though the techniques likely to be used in such a mission will be less than extravagant (don’t expect a Bruce Willis-type mission to blow the asteroid in half with nukes), the development of such technologies will be crucial for future, more threatening encounters.
In the same statement, Perminov invited NASA, ESA, the Chinese space agency, and other space programs to join in the endeavour. Such cooperation will be fundamental, obviously lowering the costs for all, but the technology and information to be gained from such a feat would prove beneficial for everyone involved and will surely pave the way for future activities, beyond deflecting asteroids, the least of which would be mineral acquisition. Perhaps this could convince President Obama as he decides on the future of NASA’s manned spaceflight program to include an asteroid mission of its own?