Related papers: Measurement requirements for a near-Earth asteroid…

Summary: In the past decade both scientists and laymen have probably heard at least once through the newspapers, TV and Internet that a new asteroid has been discovered with non-zero (sometimes "high") probability of collision with the…

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission is the first full-scale test of the kinetic impactor method for asteroid deflection, in which a spacecraft intentionally impacts an asteroid to change its trajectory. DART represents an…

Deflection missions to near-Earth asteroids will encounter non-negligible uncertainties in the physical and orbital parameters of the target object. In order to reliably assess future impact threat mitigation operations such uncertainties…

Deflecting an asteroid from an Earth impact trajectory requires only small velocity changes, typically of the order of microns per second, if done many years ahead of time. For this, a highly precise method of determining the need,…

The Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor mission is a NASA observatory designed to discover and characterize near-Earth asteroids and comets. The mission's primary objective is to find the majority of objects large enough to cause severe…

This paper outlines the Radio Science Experiment (RSE) proposed for the RAMSES mission to asteroid (99942) Apophis, which will undergo a close Earth encounter in April 2029. This event provides a unique opportunity to study the asteroid's…

This work presents the simulation results of the radio science experiment onboard the proposed Heavy Metal mission to the M-type asteroid (216) Kleopatra. Earth-based radiometric measurements (range and range-rate), complemented by images…

Among the currently known Near Earth Objects (NEOs), roughly 1400 are classified as being potentially hazardous asteroids. The recent Chelyabinsk event has shown that these objects can pose a real threat to mankind. We illustrate that high…

Collisional threats posed by Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) are increasingly being confirmed by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and European Space Agency (ESA) sky surveys. Efforts to develop tools to perform modelling,…

Recent investigations have demonstrated the potential for utilizing a new observational and data analysis technique for studying the atmospheres of non-transiting exoplanets with combined light that relies on acquiring simultaneous,…

This study evaluates a technique for determining the mass of a potentially hazardous asteroid from a high-speed flyby in the context of a rapid reconnaissance planetary defense scenario. We consider a host spacecraft that dispenses a small…

The Near Earth Object Surveyor mission has a requirement to find two-thirds of the potentially hazardous asteroids larger than 140 meters in size. In order to determine the mission's expected progress toward this goal during design and…

Knowledge of the interior density distribution of an asteroid can reveal its composition and constrain its evolutionary history. However, most asteroid observational techniques are not sensitive to interior properties. We investigate the…

The subject of this work is the physical characterization of asteroids, focusing on the thermal inertia of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs). Thermal inertia governs the Yarkovsky effect, a non-gravitational force which significantly alters the…

While no known asteroid poses a threat to Earth for at least the next century, the catalog of near-Earth asteroids is incomplete for objects whose impacts would produce regional devastation. Several approaches have been proposed to…

BepiColombo is a joint ESA/JAXA mission to Mercury with challenging objectives regarding geophysics, geodesy and fundamental physics. The Mercury Orbiter Radioscience Experiment (MORE) is one of the on-board experiments, including three…

While almost all potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) with a size larger than one kilometre have been discovered, it is well-known that the vast majority of the smaller ones are in fact yet to be found. There is therefore an excellent…

This work presents a mission concept for in-orbit particle collection for sampling and exploration missions towards Near-Earth asteroids. Ejecta is generated via a small kinetic impactor and two possible collection strategies are…

Orbit-determination programs find the orbit solution that best fits a set of observations by minimizing the RMS of the residuals of the fit. For near-Earth asteroids, the uncertainty of the orbit solution may be compatible with trajectories…

International and U.S. strategies and protocols have identified the need to develop rapid-response spacecraft reconnaissance capabilities as a priority to advance planetary defense readiness. A space-based reconnaissance response is…