Space News is highlighting a potential new mission for the mothballed Janus spacecrafts.
Dan Scheeres, a distinguished professor of aerospace at the University of Colorado Boulder, was principal investigator on the Janus mission.
Designed and built to launch as a secondary payload on the Psyche mission in 2022, the mission was canceled after delays with Psyche.
Now, a new mission could resurrect the spacecrafts. The Space News feature highlights potential for the crafts to be used to rendezvous with the Apophis asteroid in 2029.
Scheeres is quoted in the piece.
Several options are available, he said, with trajectories that take the spacecraft out to the Earth-sun L-2 Lagrange point followed by a lunar flyby to set up an Apophis flyby “well in advance” of the asteroid’s close approach to the Earth. “It’s still in our wheelhouse,” he said.
The Space News piece discusses obstacles -- funding and otherwise -- to the idea, but said Scheeres will be participating in an upcoming NASA gathering to discuss potential for the mission.