"Landing" a small asteroid on Earth

I've been poking around similar posts, but none seem to contain the information I'm looking for. I'll try to keep it brief.

In the year 20XX, some powerful organizations are trying to "land" an asteroid using a combination of aerobraking, carefully planned orbits around the sun, and a powerful swarm of rocket engines.

Rocket launches have become significantly cheaper in this time period than they were in the early 21st century. The plan is to send a rocket swarm to a relatively small metallic asteroid --possibly no more than 20m-100m across-- and tow it ahead of earth's orbit around the sun. Over the course of X years, the asteroid will be decelerated to the point that the earth will slowly catch up to it in a relatively gentle manner until it begins a controlled re-entry using a combination of natural aerobraking, parachutes, and a final burn by the attached rockets. Hopefully, by the time the rock lands, nobody dies and some billionaires become even wealthier.

Q: Utilizing current or projected near-future technologies and assuming that rocket launches become very cheap and routine, is it plausible to "land" an asteroid in the way described or will the earth's gravity just re-accelerate it to apocalyptic speeds?

posted almost 6 years ago

DMQ‭

1 reputation 1 0 0 0