AspireSpace Asteroid Web Pages

What are the AspireSpace asteroid web pages

Welcome to the AspireSpace Asteroid web pages. The purpose of the AspireSpace asteroid pages are to provide an easily accesible source of information on asteroids, and to provide links to other asteroid web pages.

Why ?

Asteroids represent a rich source of natural materials, which will be of great importance in developing a solar system wide space infrastructure. By making information available now, it is hoped that it will allow people with an interest in exploring and mining asteroids to have as much information at their fingertips as possible, to bring about a faster pace of change with regards to asteroid exploration.

One of the first steps is to determine the Asteroid Composition, so that asteroid sources of various minerals are known.

Near Earth Asteroids

Apollo Class Asteroids
- 1566 Icarus - U-Class Asteroid.
- 1620 Geographos - This asteroid was due to be visted by the Clementine mission. Unfortunately, due to a computer problem, the fly by had to be aborted. (S-Class)
- 1862 Apollo (S-Class)
- 4769 Castalia
- 4179 Toutatis - S-Class Asteroid.
- Near-Earth Asteroid 1995 CR
Aten Class Asteroids
Amor Class Asteroids
- 433 Eros - S-Class Asteroid.
- 1221 Amor
The Kordylewski Clouds

Main Belt Asteroids

This section provides an introduction and an overview of the Main Asteroid Belt, located between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter. details and links are provided to a number of notable asteroids, such as the largest, and those which have been imaged in any detail, by spacecraft or by Earth based systems.

Introduction to Main Belt Asteroids
- 1 Ceres - The largest asteroid (C-Class)
- 2 Pallas - The second largest asteroid (U-Class)
- 3 Juno - The third asteroid to be discovered (S-Class)
- 4 Vesta - Images of Vesta, the third largest asteroid, and fourth to be discovered, have recently (1995) been obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope. ( U-Class)
- 5 Astraea
- 8 Flora
- 10 Hygiea
- 15 Eunomia
- 31 Euphrosyne
- 52 Europa
- 243 Ida & Dactyl - Ida was imaged by the Galileo-Jupiter spacecraft in August 1993. During the flyby, The Galileo spacecraft also discovered a small satellite asteroid called Dactyl, orbiting Ida. Ida is an S-Class Asteroid.
- 511 Davida
- 951 Gaspra - The asteroid 951 Gaspra, was imaged by the Galileo-Jupiter spacecraft in 1991. Gaspra is an S-Class Asteroid.
- 3834 Zappafrank
The Kirkwood Gaps
The Trojan Asteroids

Asteroid Missions

This section details spacecraft missions planned, in progress, or completed, which have asteroid encounters as at least part of their mission

NEAR
Galileo-Jupiter Mission (Asteroid flyby of Ida and Gaspra)

World-wide Web based Asteroid Resources

Other asteroid web sources include the highly detailed SEDS Asteroids Facts, the European Asteroid Research Node (EARN), the Asteroid Factsheet, and Unusual Minor Planets

AspireSpace Project Outline

This page is maintained by Richard Osborne

<aspire-info@gbnet.net>