Related papers: Optimal impact strategies for asteroid deflection
Aerodynamic collision avoidance manoeuvres provide an opportunity for satellites in Low Earth Orbits to reduce the risk during close encounters. With rising numbers of satellites and objects in orbit, satellites experience close encounters…
Global warming is one of the problems of human civilization and decarbonization policy is the main solution to this problem. In this work, we propose using the gravity-assist by the asteroids to increase the orbital distance of the Earth…
Satellites around large asteroids are preferentially found among those with the most rapid rotation and elongated shape. The taxonomic statistics are similarly skewed; in total, 13 asteroids larger than 100 km are known to have satellites,…
Photometric observations of asteroids show that some of them are in non-principal axis rotation state (free precession), called tumbling. Collisions between asteroids have been proposed as a possible asteroid rotation excitation mechanism.…
We introduce the proximal optimal transport divergence, a novel discrepancy measure that interpolates between information divergences and optimal transport distances via an infimal convolution formulation. This divergence provides a…
The question of whether to attempt deflections during planetary defence emergencies has been subject to considerable decision-making analysis (Schmidt 2018; SMPAG Ad-Hoc Working Group on Legal Issues 2020). Hypothetical situations usually…
This paper discusses the design and the performance achievable with active aerodynamic attitude control in very low Earth orbit, i.e. below 450 km in altitude. A novel real-time algorithm is proposed for selecting the angles of deflection…
The increasing congestion in the near-Earth space environment has amplified the need for robust and efficient conjunction analysis techniques including the computation of the minimum distance between orbital paths in the presence of…
A method for the rapid estimation of transfer costs for the removal of debris in low Earth orbit is proposed. Debris objects among a population with similar inclination values are considered. The proposed approximate analysis can provide…
A new approach is presented for the problem of optimal impulsive rendezvous of a spacecraft in an inertial frame near a circular orbit in a Newtonian gravitational field. The total characteristic velocity to be minimized is replaced by a…
This work presents a sequential convex program method to compute fuel-optimal collision avoidance maneuvers for long-term encounters. The low-thrust acceleration model is used to account for the control, but the method can compute…
A control optimization approach is presented for a chaser spacecraft tasked with maintaining proximity to a target space object while avoiding collisions. The target object trajectory is provided numerically to account for both passive…
The minimum-time path for intercepting a moving target with a prescribed impact angle is studied in the paper. The candidate paths from Pontryagin's maximum principle are analyzed, so that each candidate is related to a zero of a…
This paper presents a convex approach to the optimization of a cooperative rendezvous, that is, the problem of two distant spacecraft that simultaneously operate to get closer. Convex programming guarantees convergence towards the optimal…
We present a novel concept to impart a continuous thrust to an Earth threatening asteroid from a hovering spacecraft without need for physical attachment nor gravitational interaction with the asteroid. The concept involves an ion thruster…
ESA and NASA maintain asteroid hazard lists that contain all known asteroids with a non zero chance of colliding with the Earth in the future. Some software tools exist that are, either, capable of calculating the impact points of those…
Numerically computing global policies to optimal control problems for complex dynamical systems is mostly intractable. In consequence, a number of approximation methods have been developed. However, none of the current methods can quantify…
Asteroid 2009 FD could impact Earth between 2185 and 2196. The long term propagation to the possible impacts and the intervening planetary encounters make 2009 FD one of the most challenging asteroids in terms of hazard assessment. To…
The knowledge of the orbit or the ephemeris uncertainty of asteroid presents a particular interest for various purposes. These quantities are for instance useful for recovering asteroids, for identifying lost asteroids or for planning…
This paper develops a robust optimization based method to design orbits on which the sensory perception of the desired physical quantities are maximized. It also demonstrates how to incorporate various constraints imposed by many spacecraft…