MANTIS (Main-belt Asteroid and NEO Tour with Imaging and Spectroscopy) is a mission concept that would
flyby 14 asteroids covering a wide range of types and masses, and obtaining remote sensing and in-situ data. This mission would explore the diversity of asteroids to understand the
Solar system's history, its present processes, and hazards. The concept was proposed in 2019 to NASA's
Discovery Program
The Discovery Program is a series of Solar System exploration missions funded by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) through its Planetary Missions Program Office. The cost of each mission is capped at a lower level t ...
to compete for funding and development.
Overview
The MANTIS mission was first proposed to NASA's Discovery program in 2015, and it would have flown by nine asteroids, but it was not selected at that time.
Proposals to Explore the Solar System’s Smallest Worlds.
Van Kane, ''The Planetary Society''. 27 July 2015. The concept was reformulated and proposed again in 2019.[The Main-belt Asteroid and NEO Tour with Imaging and Spectroscopy (MANTIS).]
Andrew Rivkin, Barbara A. Cohen, Olivier S. Barnouin, Nancy L. Chabot, Carolyn M. Ernst, Rachel L. Klima. AGU Fall Meeting 2018. Washington DC, 10-14 December 2018.
The spacecraft would visit 14 asteroids, and would focus on members of eight known collisional families of different spectral classes and in different parts of the asteroid belt
The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, centered on the Sun and roughly spanning the space between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids ...
. The largest of these is 50 Virginia
50 Virginia is a large, very dark main belt asteroid. It was discovered by American astronomer James Ferguson on October 4, 1857, from the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. German astronomer Robert Luther discovered it indepen ...
, an 85-km asteroid. The current mission concept was formulated by a team composed of scientists from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (or simply Applied Physics Laboratory, or APL) is a not-for-profit university-affiliated research center (UARC) in Howard County, Maryland. It is affiliated with Johns Hopkins University ...
, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory located approximately northeast of Washington, D.C., in Greenbelt, Maryland, United States. Established on May 1, 1959, as NASA's first space flight center, GSFC ...
, and the University of Colorado
The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, the University of Colorado Denver, and the U ...
.
Proposed payload
The proposed science payload includes four instruments:["The Main-belt Asteroid and NEO Tour with Imaging and Spectroscopy (MANTIS)." Andrew S. Rivkin, Barbara A. Cohen, Olivier Barnouin, Carolyn M. Ernst, Nancy L. Chabot, Brett W. Denevi, Benjamin T. Greenhagen, Rachel L. Klima, Mark Perry, Zoltan Sternovsky, and the MANTIS Science Team. EPSC Abstracts Vol. 13, EPSC-DPS2019-1277-1, 2019 EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019.]
* a narrow-angle camera similar to that on board the ''New Horizons'', Double Asteroid Redirection Test
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was a NASA space mission aimed at testing a method of planetary defense against near-Earth objects (NEOs). It was designed to assess how much a spacecraft impact deflects an asteroid through its trans ...
(DART), and ''Lucy'' spacecraft
*Near-infrared imaging spectrometer similar to the CRISM instrument on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
The ''Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter'' (''MRO'') is a spacecraft designed to search for the existence of water on Mars and provide support for missions to Mars, as part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program. It was launched from Cape Canaveral on Au ...
*a mass spectrometer
Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a '' mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is us ...
analyzing microsamples shed by asteroids and interplanetary dust
The interplanetary dust cloud, or zodiacal cloud (as the source of the zodiacal light), consists of cosmic dust (small particles floating in outer space) that pervades the space between planets within planetary systems, such as the Solar System ...
particles encountered during cruise.
*a mid-infrared camera measuring thermal emission built by collaborators in the United Kingdom.
References
Discovery program proposals
Missions to main-belt asteroids
{{US-spacecraft-stub