# How could asteroid 2013 ND$_1$$_5 become a moon of Venus with the aid of rocket engines? Notice: Although this question is similar to this one, it is different because asteroid 2012 XE_1$$_3$$_3 has a transitional path between Venus's Lagrangian points L5 point and L3 point, whereas 2013 ND_1$$_5$ follows a tadpole orbit around the L4 point.

2013 ND$_1$$_5$ is an asteroid of the Aten group that is a co-orbital and a temporary trojan of Venus.

It is following a tadpole orbit around Venus's Lagrangian point L4 and is also a Mercury crosser and an Earth crosser.

It comes to within 0.05 AU of Earth periodically and has a diameter in the range of 40 to 100 meters.

Could this asteroid be altered in its orbit with today's rocket engines in such a way that eventually it could become a moon of Venus ?

• It may be possible for an asteroid with a diameter of less than 4 meters, but 40 meters is too heavy by a factor of 1000 or even more. But moving even the small 4 m asteroid will be enormously expensive. – Uwe Jul 10 '18 at 14:51
• This would be a much more interesting SE question if you asked "How could I estimate the delta-v necessary to move this asteroid into a high orbit around Venus?" since the answer would be in the form of a procedure, an equation or two, and some helpful insight. I think "Would it be possible to..." questions are low quality, as the answer always ends up being of the form "how much time or money do you have?" I could write a "yes" answer and a "no" answer and they could be equally true and equally false - because of course I would write them that way ;-) – uhoh Jul 11 '18 at 0:53
• I think you are missing a critical thing: to become a moon, you need to brake around venus in order not to escape again. Earth sometime capture some objects, but that's mainly thanks to our moon gravity assist; and the objects endup ejected after a few orbits. Venus has no moon. – Antzi Jul 11 '18 at 5:56
• @uhoh The hunt-and-peck question series is more about "No, then okay, what about this Lagrangian point ? :) – Cornelisinspace Jul 11 '18 at 8:00
• Gawd, I thought it's actually co-orbital with Venus, following it while librating around L4, in a nearly the same orbit. In that case the work would be doable, push it out or the shallow L4 force well at such a point it doesn't crash into Venus, then capture into Venus gravity well. A couple m/s one way, a couple another. But it's Earth and Mercury crosser again, eccentricity 0.61 (Venus: 0.006) and doesn't pass anywhere near Venus. I don't even get how that orbit could be classified as tadpole. – SF. Jul 11 '18 at 8:32