National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is building a space shotgun to test the strength of asteroids and other space rocks.
Brooklyn-based Honeybee Robotics announced their involvement for development of the technology.
The space shotgun is intended to determine whether mass is sturdy enough for sampling and it is part of NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission.
Features of Asteriod Redirect Mission (ARM)
- First robotic mission to visit a large near-Earth asteroid
- Multi-ton stones are redirected into a stable orbit around the moon.
- Once an asteroid is in a stable orbit, astronauts will explore it
- Astronauts after exploring the deep space and returns with samples.
- Collected samples will be useful in discovering the science behind formation of our solar system and beginning of life on Earth.
- A spacecraft as part of the mission will be launched by 2020 and the astronauts will return with samples in 2020s.
- The mission also will demonstrate planetary defence techniques to deflect dangerous asteroids and protect Earth if needed in the future.
