Identification of Retrievable Asteroids with the Tisserand Criterion

NASA is currently studying an Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) concept that could capture an entire 2 to 12 m asteroid or boulder from a larger asteroid and place it in orbit around the Moon. Once at the Moon, astronauts would be sent to visit the asteroid or boulder and use it as a test bed for developing technologies and procedures needed for deep space human missions. In the case of the redirection of an entire asteroid, the asteroid mass could be from 100 to 1000 metric tonnes, and the ARM spacecraft would only be able to apply relatively small ∆V to the asteroid. Therefore, ARM would rely on Lunar Gravity Assists (LGAs) to provide most of the ∆V needed for capture. This paper presents a method based upon the Tisserand Criterion for identifying asteroids that can be redirected with a small ∆V (< 200 m/s) to an LGA that would capture the asteroid.