About two years ago, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced its Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM). The concept was released by the agency in its fiscal year 2014 budget request. That time, the space agency stated that it planned to send a robotic mission to a near earth asteroid.

According to the agency's plan, after that, astronauts would go to capture the asteroid and collect samples from its surface. The agency further stated that it will demonstrate technologies that would be critical for mission in near future beyond earth's orbit. The agency's mission has been in question from a long time. Some scientists of the scientific community wondered how such a mission could help in future missions.

The United States space agency had decided to make an announcement in the last month of 2014 about two options it planned to use for the robotic portion of ARM. According to the first option, the space agency will send a spacecraft to an asteroid, which after grabbing the asteroid will redirect it into lunar orbit. The same concept was published in 2012 by Caltech's Keck Institute for Space Studies.

As per the agency's second option, the asteroid will not be moved, and instead of doing that, a spacecraft will be sent to a larger near Earth asteroid. The spacecraft will land on the asteroid and grab a boulder up to four meters across for return to lunar orbit.

After a meeting at NASA Headquarters in mid-December, NASA announced that it was delaying the decision as the agency wanted more time to study the two options. According to NASA associate administrator Robert Lightfoot, second option could be a better approach. He said, "It's the complexity associated with taking the boulder off the asteroid versus the technology development you get by doing that that is extensible".