The gas-surface interaction of a human-occupied spacecraft with a near-Earth object

NASA’s asteroid redirect mission (ARM) will feature an encounter of the human-occupied Orion spacecraft with a portion of a nearEarth asteroid (NEA) previously placed in orbit about the Moon by a capture spacecraft. Applying a shuttle analog, we suggest that the Orion spacecraft should have a dominant local water exosphere, and that molecules from this exosphere can adsorb onto the NEA. The amount of adsorbed water is a function of the defect content of the NEA surface, with retention of shuttle-like water levels on the asteroid at 10 H2O’s/m 2 for space weathered regolith at T 300 K. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of COSPAR. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).