NASA | Flying Low over Southeast Greenland
Few of us ever get to see Greenland #39;s glaciers from 500 meters above the ice. But in this video mdash; recorded on April 9,2013 in southeast Greenland using a coc...

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NASA | Flying Low over Southeast Greenland - Video

April 13, 2013

The X-48C, transformed from the X-48B, taking its first flight over the Mojave Desert in California. Image Credit: NASA / Carla Thomas

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports Your Universe Online

Tuesdays flight of NASAs remotely-piloted X-48C aircraft successfully concluded an eight month research campaign designed to demonstrate technological concepts for cleaner, quieter commercial air travel, the US space agency announced on Saturday.

The first flight of the Boeing-designed X-48 hybrid-wing-body subscale aircrafts C model took place at Edwards Air Force Base in California on August 7. The April 9 flight was the 30th and final one for the manta ray-shaped scale-model vehicle, ending what NASA officials have dubbed a productive research project.

We have accomplished our goals of establishing a ground-to-flight database, and proving the low speed controllability of the concept throughout the flight envelope, Fay Collier, manager of the NASA Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) Project, said in a statement. Very quiet and efficient, the hybrid wing body has shown promise for meeting all of NASAs environmental goals for future aircraft designs.

The X-48C, which was built by a UK company known as Cranfield Aerospace Limited, is a modified version of the X-48B blended-wing-body aircraft that was redesigned to evaluate both the low-speed stability and control of a low-noise hybrid-wing-body design.

The new design includes a flattened, tailless fuselage that has the engine mounted atop the rear part of the aircrafts main body a layout inspired by concept studies NASA claims are currently being tested by the ERA Project and could actually be airborne within two decades time.

In most ways, the X-48C retains the dimensions of its predecessor, officials from the space agency said. The vehicles wingspan is slightly over 20 feet and it weighs approximately 500 pounds, but unlike the B-model, the C has been altered to have an airframe noise-shielding configuration.

In addition, the wingtip winglets were relocated from the B to the C. They were moved inboard next to the engine, essentially turning them into twin tails. Furthermore, the aircrafts rear deck was lengthened by about two feet and the Bs three 50-pound thrust jet engines were replaced with a pair of 89-pound thrust engines giving the C an estimated top speed of 140 mph and a maximum altitude of 10,000 feet.

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NASA’s X-48C Advances Cleaner, Quieter Airliner Design

It is time for the private sector to aid in the search for potentially city-destroying asteroids and meteors, lawmakers said during a hearing Wednesday (April 10).

The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology made the call while hearing from NASA scientists and private-sector asteroid hunters during a hearing entitled "Threats from Space," with both groups agreeing that something more needs to be done.

"Detecting asteroids should not be the primary mission of NASA," Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, said at the hearing. "No doubt the private sector will play an important role as well. We must better recognize what the private sector can do to aid our efforts to protect the world." [Meteor Streaks over Russia, Explodes (Photos)]

The meeting Wednesday was the second of three aimed at understanding the threat to Earth posed by asteroids in space. The first hearing took place in late March, and addressed the ways governmental entities, like NASA and the Air Force, are mitigating the risks posed by close-flying space rocks. The meetings were scheduled in response to a surprise meteor explosion over Russia and the close flyby of asteroid 2012 DA14 both of which occurred on Feb. 15.

Astronomers have mapped the orbits of more than 90 percent of the potentially world-ending asteroids in close proximity to the Earth; however, tracking anything smaller than 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) in diameter is more difficult, said Ed Lu, the CEO of the B612 Foundation, a nonprofit organization in the early stages of building a near-Earth-object-hunting space telescope scheduled for launch in 2018.

"NASA has not even come close to finding and tracking the 1 million smaller asteroids that might only just wipe out a city, or perhaps collapse the world economy if they hit in the wrong place," Lu said at the hearing.

B612's space telescope, dubbed Sentinel, will be built to aid in the search for smaller asteroids near Earth. Less than 10 percent of asteroids measuring around 459 feet (140 meters) in diameter have been found, while only 1 percent of all asteroids measuring around 131 feet (40 meters) or "city killer" range have been tracked, Lu said.

These city-destroying asteroids are notoriously difficult to track with the ground-based methods used by NASA today because the space rocks are relatively small and dark, said Don Yeomans, the head of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program.

"A dramatic increase in near-Earth asteroid-discovery efficiencies is achievable using space-based infrared telescopes," Yeomans said at the hearing.

Searching for space rocks in infrared light as the $240 million Sentinel is expected to do could allow astronomers to find a larger number of smaller objects that are too dark to be seen in visible light, Yeomans said.

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NASA Needs Help to Hunt City-Destroying Asteroids, Congress Says

The bright spot in this 2007 image taken by NASA's Mars Orbiter spacecraft may be the parachute from a 1971 Soviet mission that soft landed a spacecraft on the Red Planet. Credit: NASA JPL/University of Arizona

MOSCOW, April 12 (UPI) -- Russian space enthusiasts say a NASA orbiter may have captured images of pieces of a Soviet spacecraft that made a soft landing on Mars more than 40 years ago.

They say the evidence of the Mars 3 mission, the first successful soft landing on the Red Planet, is in images taken in 2007 by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

NASA reported their claims Friday.

"While following news about Mars and NASA's Curiosity rover, Russian citizen enthusiasts found four features in a 5-year-old image from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that resemble four pieces of hardware from the Soviet Mars 3 mission: the parachute, heat shield, terminal retrorocket and lander," the space agency said.

The Soviet space mission made a soft landing on Mars Dec. 2, 1971, and sent data back to Earth for 14.5 seconds before the transmissions stopped abruptly, RIA Novosti reported.

Russian space follower Vitali Egorov saw an image taken by NASA's orbiter of the crater where Mars 3 was believed to have landed, and recruited members of an online community that follows NASA's Curiosity rover to look for objects in the image that matched the Mars 3 equipment.

Alfred McEwen, principal investigator of the University of Arizona's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment on the orbiter, was asked to analyze a follow-up image of Mars 3's landing site, and said the objects identified by the Russians could be the real thing.

"The parachute, which is seen as an especially bright spot, was the most distinctive and unusual feature in the images," he told RIA Novosti.

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NASA spacecraft may have spotted pieces of Soviet spacecraft on Mars

The development of NASA's biggest, most powerful rocket yet is running ahead of schedule and on budget, its primary contractor said Wednesday (April 10).

The towering Space Launch System (SLS) is a 384-foot (117 meters) behemoth intended to launch astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit to deep-space asteroids and Mars. The vehicle is slated to make its first test flight in 2017, when it will launch an unmanned Orion capsule (also in development) beyond the moon. The first manned flight is pegged for 2021.

So far, NASA and The Boeing Co., which has been contracted to build the rocket's core stage, are on track to meet that date, officials said.

PHOTOS: NASA's Asteroid Capture Mission

"We're on budget, ahead of schedule," John Elbon, Boeing's vice president and general manager of space exploration, told reporters here at the 29th annual National Space Symposium. "There's incredible progress going on with that rocket."

At the end of December 2012 -- five months ahead of schedule -- the team passed a milestone called preliminary design review, which certified that the rocket design meets its requirements within acceptable risk parameters. Its final technical review, called critical design review, is scheduled for 2014.

The booster, in its initial configuration, uses solid rocket boosters based on the space shuttle's design, with an upper stage taken from United Launch Alliance's well-tried Delta 4 rocket.

NEWS: Monster Rocket To Travel to Mars

"The whole theory of it was to use existing hardware so we could design something relatively low-risk and get a capability soon," Elbon said.

Eventually, the SLS will have to be outfitted to carry heavier loads than its initial configuration can lift. It must carry the crew and equipment needed for a mission to Mars -- which will be a multistep, complex operation. What those steps will be, exactly, is yet to be settled by NASA.

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NASA's Monster Mars Rocket Ahead of Schedule

NASA and lawmakers disagree over the future of human spaceflight. NASA has its sights set on an asteroid landing, while legislators want a permanent moon base.

While NASA's proposed budget for 2014 unveiled this week reaffirms the space agency's ambitious plan to send astronauts to an asteroid, some members of Congress are pushing for a more familiar goal: a moon base by 2022.

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President Barack Obama's federal budget request for 2014, released Wednesday (April 10), gives NASA $105 million to jump-start a bold plan topark an asteroid near the moon. Astronauts would then explore the space rock using the agency's Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule, with the first visit perhaps coming as early as 2021.

The proposed "Asteroid Initiative" lines up with the manned spaceflight priorities of the Obama Administration, which three years ago cancelled NASA's moon-oriented Constellation program and directed the agency to get astronauts to an asteroid by 2025, then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s.

But some lawmakers contend thatthe moonshould still be NASA's immediate human spaceflight target. They have reintroduced a 2011 bill called the RE-asserting American Leadership in Space Act (or REAL Space Act for short), which asks NASA to send astronauts to the moon by 2022 with the goal of establishing a long-term settlement there.

"The moon is our nearest celestial body, taking only a matter of days to reach," Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) said in a statement Wednesday. "In order to explore deeper into space to Mars and beyond a moon presence offers us the ability to develop and test technologies to cope with the realities of operating on an extraterrestrial surface."

The bill would also give NASA's manned spaceflight efforts more direction, its sponsors say.

"This legislation is not just about landing another human on the moon. It is about restoring our nations now-defunct human spaceflight program and setting clear and achievable goals that will lead to advancements in science and technology," said Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah). "This legislation restores and clarifies NASAs role in human spaceflight and sets the US back on course to lead exploration of the cosmos."

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NASA's next step: Send people to a moon base or an asteroid?

NASA and lawmakers disagree over the future of human spaceflight. NASA has its sights set on an asteroid landing, while legislators want a permanent moon base.

While NASA's proposed budget for 2014 unveiled this week reaffirms the space agency's ambitious plan to send astronauts to an asteroid, some members of Congress are pushing for a more familiar goal: a moon base by 2022.

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition

President Barack Obama's federal budget request for 2014, released Wednesday (April 10), gives NASA $105 million to jump-start a bold plan topark an asteroid near the moon. Astronauts would then explore the space rock using the agency's Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule, with the first visit perhaps coming as early as 2021.

The proposed "Asteroid Initiative" lines up with the manned spaceflight priorities of the Obama Administration, which three years ago cancelled NASA's moon-oriented Constellation program and directed the agency to get astronauts to an asteroid by 2025, then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s.

But some lawmakers contend thatthe moonshould still be NASA's immediate human spaceflight target. They have reintroduced a 2011 bill called the RE-asserting American Leadership in Space Act (or REAL Space Act for short), which asks NASA to send astronauts to the moon by 2022 with the goal of establishing a long-term settlement there.

"The moon is our nearest celestial body, taking only a matter of days to reach," Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) said in a statement Wednesday. "In order to explore deeper into space to Mars and beyond a moon presence offers us the ability to develop and test technologies to cope with the realities of operating on an extraterrestrial surface."

The bill would also give NASA's manned spaceflight efforts more direction, its sponsors say.

"This legislation is not just about landing another human on the moon. It is about restoring our nations now-defunct human spaceflight program and setting clear and achievable goals that will lead to advancements in science and technology," said Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah). "This legislation restores and clarifies NASAs role in human spaceflight and sets the US back on course to lead exploration of the cosmos."

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NASA's big decision: Build a moon base or lasso an asteroid?

Proposed cuts included in NASA's 2014 budget request would sabotage a mission to Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter that could support life, scientists say.

The Obama administration released its 2014 budget proposal Wednesday (April 10). While the budget would set aside $17.7 billion for NASA, it would cut the agency's previous $1.5 billion budget for the planetary science division by $200 million, scientists said in a live webcast sponsored by the Planetary Society, an organization founded by scientist Carl Sagan to promote solar-system exploration.

"We're a little disappointed that planetary science didn't get a little better shake," said Bill Nye, CEO of the society and popularly known as televisions "Bill Nye the Science Guy." [NASA's 2014 Space Goals Explained in Pictures]

The new budget does not follow the recommendations of the National Research Council's Planetary Science Decadal Survey, a 410-page report that surveyed dozens of planetary scientists to identify the top priorities for the field over the next decade, Nye said.

"This very-well-thought-out, strongly supported list of suggestions has not really been embraced or the better word would be 'ignored,'" Nye said.

Europa, a mysterious moon of Jupiter, has a churning ocean locked beneath its icy surface, making it one of the best potential sources of extraterrestrial life in the solar system.

But the new budget doesn't include any money to explore Europa's ice-covered ocean.

The budget does set aside funds to identify asteroids that could threaten Earth and to bring back samples from an asteroid, said Bill Adkins, a consultant for the society.

The administration's budget also includes funding to send a rover, much like the Curiosity rover, to Mars in 2020.

However, the budget does not set aside funds to take rocks back from the planet to study them on Earth, Adkins said.

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NASA Budget Cutbacks Would Cripple Planetary Science, Critics Say

NASA this week put the official stamp on an initiative to capture a near-Earth asteroid and haul it back to a "stable orbit in the Earth-moon system where astronauts can visit and explore it."

The space agency apportioned $105 million for the mission as part of its fiscal 2014 budget, released on Wednesday. It also confirmed that mission simulations and training of astronauts for a trip to an asteroid have been ongoing since 2011.

"Performing these elements for the proposed asteroid initiative integrates the best of NASA's science, technology, and human exploration capabilities and draws on the innovation of America's brightest scientists and engineers," NASA said in a statement.

"It uses current and developing capabilities to find both large asteroids that pose a hazard to Earth and small asteroids that could be candidates for the initiative, accelerates our technology development activities in high-powered solar electric propulsion, and takes advantage of our hard work on the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft, helping to keep NASA on target to reach the President's goal of sending humans to Mars in the 2030s," the agency said.

NASA reportedly has its sights on locating a roughly 500-ton, 25-foot carbonaceous (C-type) asteroid for retrieval in 2019. An unmanned spacecraft using a kind of solar-powered engine would fly to the target object and haul it back to the vicinity of the Moon, where a team of four astronauts traveling in an Orion capsule would visit it in 2021.

Private asteroid-mining venture Planetary Resources praised the plan and said NASA's efforts would help private firms to achieve their own goals of identifying useful asteroids for the purpose of robotically mining them for water, precious metals, and other valuable materials.

"We applaud NASA's intention to capture and redirect a small asteroid to trans-Lunar space by 2021. Based on the mission study performed by the Keck Institute for Space Studies, the plan is a reasonable extension of a number of technologies and approaches which have already been demonstrated on prior NASA missions," Chris Lewicki, president and chief engineer of Planetary Resources, said in a statement.

"Finding, capturing and repositioning a 500-ton asteroid certainly is a difficult, but achievable task. Knowing the exact size and mass of an asteroid millions of kilometers away is a challenge with any kind of instrument. If your plan is to grab and return one, you'll want to make sure you can handle it once you get there! This is the reason why Planetary Resources is developing our Arkyd series of prospecting spacecraftto send-out ahead of any mining activity and obtain the necessary answers," Lewicki added in a blog post.

Another private venture, Deep Space Industries, has also announced its intention to locate and mine asteroids.

While there was enthusiasm for the asteroid initiative in some circles, there has been pushback from some in the space community as well as from members of the U.S. Congress. At a recent high-level meeting in Washington, it came to light that an internal battle over NASA's long-term goals for human spaceflight appears to be brewing within the space agency. Some influential people within NASA are pushing to return astronauts to the Moon before attempting a manned mission to an asteroid or to Mars, another major NASA objective.

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Private Space Firms Praise NASA's Asteroid-Capture Plan

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. (AP) On one of Virginia's small barrier islands, a NASA facility that operates in relative obscurity outside scientific circles is preparing to be thrust into the spotlight.

On Wednesday, Orbital Sciences Corp. plans to conduct the first test launch of its Antares rocket under a NASA program in which private companies deliver supplies to the International Space Station. If all goes as planned, the unmanned rocket's practice payload will be vaulted into orbit from Wallops Island before burning up in the atmosphere on its return to Earth several months later.

The goal of the launch isn't to connect with the space station, but to make sure the rocket works and that a simulated version of a cargo ship that will dock with space station on future launches separates into orbit. Orbital officials say that should occur about 10 minutes after liftoff.

In that short period of time, Wallops Island will transition from a little-known launch pad for small research rockets to a major player in the U.S. space program.

The Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's rural Eastern Shore is small in comparison to major NASA centers like those in Florida, California and Texas. The site is near Maryland and just south of Chincoteague Island, which attracts thousands of tourists each summer for an annual wild pony swim made famous by the 1947 novel "Misty of Chincoteague." The Eastern Shore is dominated by forests and farmland, and Wallops Island's isolated nature, with marshland to its west and the Atlantic Ocean to its east, has also made it home to a Navy surface warfare combat center.

Those who work at Wallops Island joke that even people living on the Eastern Shore are surprised to learn about rocket launches there.

In fact, more than 16,000 rockets have been launched from Wallops Island since 1945, but none has drawn the attention of Antares. Most of the launches are suborbital and focus on educational and research programs.

"The real transformation here at Wallops is we've always been kind of a research facility," said William Wrobel, the facility's director. "So this transition is really kind of into an operational phase, where we're going to be doing kind of regular flights out of here to the space station."

A successful launch would pave the way for Dulles-based Orbital to demonstrate that it can connect its unmanned Cygnus cargo ship with the space station this summer. If that's successful, Orbital would launch the first of eight resupply missions from the island in the fall under a $1.9 billion NASA contract.

Orbital has been in the commercial space business for more than 30 years, producing small satellites and rockets for NASA and the military. Antares marks the company's first venture in medium-size rockets, which can carry twice as much of a payload as other rockets it produces.

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NASA's Wallops Island prepares for the spotlight

Singing Nasa Iyo Na Ang Lahat
Yung little brother ko kumakanta ng Nasa Iyo Na Ang Lahat habang naglalaro sa phone. HAHAHA! Nakakatuwa lang kaya vinideohan ko. :))) NO HATE, JUST LOVE :)))

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Andromeda-Milky Way Galaxy Collision Simulation By NASA
For more interesting Facts and videos, like my page http://www.fb.com/spacereloaded In about 4 billion years, Our Milky Way Galaxy will collide/merge with its neare...

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Andromeda-Milky Way Galaxy Collision Simulation By NASA - Video

Commercial Rocket Rolled at Wallops on This Week @ NASA
Orbital Sciences Corporation #39;s Antares rocket was rolled out to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport #39;s Pad-0A at Wallops Flight Facility in preparation for a ...

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Commercial Rocket Rolled at Wallops on This Week @ NASA - Video

Nasa Mars rover
A Mars rover is an automated motor vehicle which propels itself across the surface of the planet Mars after landing. Rovers have several advantages over stat...

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CANARIAS-RSN191-GOMERA-PLAYA SANTIAGO-CASI-NASA-ARGENTINA- FOTOS-2013
Fotos de Islas Canarias, Playa Santiago y la Gomera ao Marzo 2013, mas en rsn191.

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CANARIAS-RSN191-GOMERA-PLAYA SANTIAGO-CASI-NASA-ARGENTINA- FOTOS-2013 - Video

President Barack Obama unveiled a proposed federal budget for 2014 today (April 10), which includes $17.7 billion in funding for NASA in the next fiscal year. The budget request also includes $105 million dedicated to support an audacious new mission to capture and asteroid and park it near the moon so that astronauts can explore it by 2025.

In addition to the asteroid capture mission, NASA's 2014 budget request also includes about $200 million in cuts to planetary science, which has upset some scientists and space exploration groups. It does, however, increase funding for Earth science missions and fully fund the agency's private space taxi program and new human spaceflight projects, such as the Space Launch System mega-rocket and Orion space capsule.

See the initial reactions to NASA's 2014 Budget Request below:

Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator

This budget focuses on an ambitious new mission to expand Americas capabilities in space, steady progress on new space and aeronautic technologies, continued success with commercial space partnerships, and far-reaching science programs to help us understand Earth and the universe in which we live. It keeps us competitive, opens the door to new destinations and vastly increases our knowledge. [NASA's Asteroid-Capture Mission in Photos]

(This is only part of Bolden's statement on the NASA budget. Read the full statement here.)

Bill Nye (the Science Guy), CEO, The Planetary Society

The Administration just released its proposed budget for 2014 and it contains some very bad news for NASA's planetary exploration program.

Our initial review shows a cut of over $200 million this year a cut that will strangle future missions and reverse a decade's worth of investment building the world's premier exploration program.

(The Planetary Society will hold a webcast at 6 p.m. PDT/9 p.m. EDT tonight to discuss NASA's 2014 budget proposal. Watch it Live Here.)

The rest is here:

NASA's 2014 Budget: Space Exploration Experts React

Watch a series of animations from NASA showing how the asteroid retrieval mission might unfold.

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

NASA says it will begin work on an ambitious mission to capture a near-Earth asteroid and bring it to a stable orbit in the Earth-moon system as part of the agency's overall $17.7 billion agenda for the coming year.

The budget request for fiscal year 2014, unveiled on Wednesday, also aims to get U.S. astronauts back to flying on U.S.-based spaceships by 2017, launch the $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope by 2018 and send another rover to Mars by 2020.

The proposed budget is about $50 million less than the amount sought a year ago, but about $1 billion more than the agency's current spending plan. Billions of dollars would be set aside to continue operations on the International Space Station, keep up the work on interplanetary missions, expand the nation's network of Earth-observing satellites and upgrade aerospace technologies. However, the headline-grabber in the budget is the asteroid retrieval mission, which is budgeted for $105 million in spending during the fiscal year beginning in September.

"This mission represents an unprecedented technological feat that will lead to new scientific discoveries and technological capabilities and help protect our home planet," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement accompanying the budget request.

Planning documents suggest that the space agency would launch a probe powered by a next-generation solar electric propulsion system sometime around 2017, to rendezvous with a 7- to 10-meter-wide (25- to 33-foot-wide) asteroid around 2019. A collapsible shroud would be wrapped around the asteroid, and then the probe would pull the space rock to a stable point in high lunar orbit or at a gravitational balance point beyond the far side of the moon.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, officials familiar with the plan told NBC News that NASA was already beginning the work to identify a candidate asteroid. The 2014 budget includes $78 million for planning the mission, and $27 million to accelerate NASA's efforts to detect and characterize potentially hazardous asteroids. NASA's chief financial officer, Elizabeth Robinson, indicated that this spending would come in addition to the $20 million that the space agency currently spends annually on asteroid detection.

The plan for the mission was formally unveiled less than two months after an asteroid streaked through the atmosphere and broke up over Russia. The breakup sparked a meteor blast that shattered windows and injured more than 1,000 people.

That asteroid was thought to have been about 17 meters (55 feet) wide. The type of asteroid targeted for the future NASA mission, in contrast, would be too small to pose a threat to Earth even if it were to break loose somehow and plunge through the atmosphere.

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NASA touts plan to grab asteroid as 'unprecedented technological feat'

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - President Barack Obama wants NASA to start work on finding a small asteroid that could be shifted into an orbit near the moon and used by astronauts as a stepping-stone for an eventual mission to Mars, agency officials said on Wednesday.

The project, which envisions that astronauts could visit such an asteroid as early as 2021, is included in Obama's $17.7 billion spending plan for the U.S. space agency for the 2014 fiscal year.

It is intended as an expansion of existing initiatives to find asteroids that may be on a collision course with Earth, and preparations for a human expedition to Mars in the 2030s.

"This mission allows us to better develop our technology and systems to explore farther than we've ever been before - to an asteroid and to Mars - places that humanity has dreamed about but has had no hope of ever attaining," NASA administrator Charles Bolden told reporters during a conference call.

"We're on the threshold of being able to tell my kids and my grandkids that we're almost there."

In 2010, Obama proposed that NASA follow the International Space Station program with a human mission to an asteroid by 2025. The agency has been developing a heavy-lift rocket and deep-space capsule capable of carrying astronauts beyond the station's 250-mile (400-km) high orbit.

The system would be capable of traveling to the moon, asteroids and eventually to Mars, the long-term goal of the U.S. human space program.

"I think the asteroid-retrieval mission lays out a place for us to go," Kennedy Space Center director Bob Cabana told reporters in a separate conference call.

"It does everything that needs to be done as far as developing the technologies and the skills that we need for exploration beyond planet Earth."

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NASA unveils plan to catch asteroid as step to Mars flight

NASA unveiled a $17.7 billion spending plan for 2014 today (April 10) that continues major ongoing space exploration projects, while including funds to kick-start an audacious new mission to capture a small asteroid and park it near the moon so astronauts can explore it by 2025.

The proposed NASA budget is part of President Barack Obama's 2014 federal budget request and would restore the U.S. space agency's funding back near its 2013 levels. The request is about $50 million less than NASA's 2013 budget but would restore deep cuts from sequestration, leaving the agency with a roughly $1 billion increase from the $16.6 billion budget actually received for 2013.

NASA's plan to send a robotic spacecraft to lasso an asteroid and tow it to the moon is a stand-out item in the 2014 budget request. The goal is to capture an asteroid and bring it closer to Earth so that a manned mission can explore the space rock by 2025 a major U.S. spaceflight goal set by Obama in 2010. [NASA's 2014 Budget Explained in Photos]

"We are developing a first-ever mission to identify, capture and relocate and asteroid," NASA chief Charles Bolden said in a statement. "This mission represents an unprecedented technological feat that will lead to new scientific discoveries and technological capabilities and help protect our home planet. This asteroid initiative brings together the best of NASAs science, technology and human exploration efforts to achieve the presidents goal of sending humans to an asteroid by 2025."

How to catch an asteroid

NASA's 2014 budget sets aside a $78 million down payment for the asteroid-capture mission, as well as additional funds to search for the candidate space rock for the initial rendezvous and capture, bringing the total funding for the project to about $105 million in 2014.

In all, NASA could spend up to $2.6 billion on the asteroid-capture mission through 2025, according to a study conducted by scientists with Caltech's Keck Institute for Space Studies in Pasadena last year. That study reviewed the feasibility of robotically capturing a 500-ton asteroid about 23 feet (7 meters) wide and placing it in orbit near the moon by 2025.

Bolden said NASA's new mega-rocket, the Space Launch System, and its Orion deep-space capsulewould be used for the manned portions of the asteroid capture mission. The agency will also "develop new technologies like solar electric propulsion and laser communications -- all critical components of deep space exploration."

The Space Launch System and Orion capsule are part of NASA's Exploration Systems division, which is funded at $2.7 billion in 2014 in the new budget, down from $3 billion last year.

In addition to the asteroid mission, NASA's 2014 budget includes continued funding for the International Space Station, as well as increased support for private space taxis, which the space agency plans to rely on to launch American astronauts to the space station now that its shuttle fleet is retired. Commercial spaceflight funding in 2014 is pegged at $821.4 million, just over twice the amount received in the 2013 request.

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Obama Seeks $17.7 Billion for NASA to Lasso Asteroid, Explore Space

NASA's funding outlook for the next year will be revealed today (April 10), when President Barack Obama releases his 2014 federal budget request.

A boost over the $17.7 billion allocated to the space agency in last year's request would be a surprise in these tough fiscal times. But NASA is expected to receive $100 million to jump-start a bold asteroid-capture mission, which would drag a 500-ton space rock near the moon for research and exploration purposes.

"NASA is in the planning stages of an innovative mission to accomplish the president's challenge of sending humans to visit an asteroid by 2025 in a more cost-effective and potentially quicker time frame than under other scenarios," a senior administration official told SPACE.com.

"This mission would combine the best of NASA's asteroid identification, technology development and human exploration efforts to capture and redirect a small asteroid to just beyond the moon to set up a human mission using existing resources and equipment, including the heavy-lift rocket and deep-space capsule that have been under development for several years," the official added, referring to NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft. [NASA's Asteroid-Capture Plan (Video)]

U.S. Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) said last week that the proposed mission aims to get astronauts to the captured space rock by 2021, which is also the year that SLS and Orion are scheduled to begin carrying crews.

The overall cost of the robotic asteroid-retrieval mission not including the astronaut visit is estimated at about $2.6 billion, according to a feasibility study led by Caltech's Keck Institute for Space Studies that was published last year.

The 2014 budget request follows closely on the heels of sequestration, which on March 1 imposed a broad 5-percent cut on many federal agencies, including NASA. Sequestration and several other small cuts have reduced the space agency's actual 2013 budget to around $16.6 billion, so NASA is now looking for ways to trim costs.

NASA chief Charles Bolden has said that SLS, the $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope and the commercial crew program are top agency priorities, so they may not be affected much by the cuts. NASA's planetary science program, on the other hand, may have to cough up a relativately large share.

Planetary science also suffered in last year's federal budget request, which cut the robotic exploration program by about 20 percent while keeping NASA's overall top line pretty much flat.

Bolden will discuss NASA's 2014 budget during a White House press conference today at 1:30 p.m. EDT (1730 GMT) and a NASA teleconference today at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT).

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NASA to Unveil 2014 Budget Request, Asteroid Lasso Plan Today