Related papers: Dealing with Uncertainties in Asteroid Deflection …
We introduce NEOviz, an interactive visualization system designed to assist planetary defense experts in the visual analysis of the movements of near-Earth objects in the Solar System that might prove hazardous to Earth. Asteroids are often…
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…
Robust impact monitoring of near-Earth objects is an essential task of planetary defense. Current systems such as NASA's Sentry-II, the University of Pisa's CLOMON2, and ESA's Aegis have been highly successful, but independent approaches…
Given a primary interest in "mitigation of the potential hazard" of near-Earth objects impacting the Earth, the subject of characterization takes on an aspect not normally present when considering asteroids as abstract bodies. Many…
This paper presents an analysis of optimal impact strategies to deflect potentially dangerous asteroids. To compute the increase in the minimum orbit intersection distance of the asteroid due to an impact with a spacecraft, simple…
Analytical approximations are commonly employed in the initial trajectory design phase of a mission to rapidly explore a broad design space. In the context of an asteroid deflection mission, accurately predicting deflection is crucial to…
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…
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…
A concept for an Impact Mitigation Preparation Mission, called Don Quijote, is to send two spacecraft to a Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA): an Orbiter and an Impactor. The Impactor collides with the asteroid while the Orbiter measures the…
Asteroids have called the attention of researchers around the world. Its chemical and physical composition can give us important information about the formation of our Solar System. In addition, the hypothesis of mining some of these…
Asteroid Impacts pose a major threat to all life on the Earth. Deflecting the asteroid from the impact trajectory is an important way to mitigate the threat. A kinetic impactor remains to be the most feasible method to deflect the asteroid.…
To deflect impact-trajectory of massive km^3 and spinning asteroid by a few terrestrial radius one need a large momentum exchange. The dragging of huge spinning bodies in space by external engine seems difficult or impossible. Our solution…
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…
The surface of asteroid (25143) Itokawa shows both fresh and mature terrains, despite its short space weathering timescale of approximately 1000 years, as inferred from recent studies. Seismic shaking triggered by the impact that formed the…
Near-Earth small-body mission targets 162173 Ryugu, 101955 Bennu, and 25143 Itokawa produce gravity fields around 4 orders of magnitude below that of Earth and their irregular shapes, combined with rotational effects produce varying surface…
Laser ablation of a Near-Earth Object (NEO) on a collision course with Earth produces a cloud of ejecta which exerts a thrust on the NEO, deflecting it from its original trajectory. Ablation may be performed from afar by illuminating an…
In recent years, understanding asteroids has shifted from light worlds to geological worlds by exploring modern spacecraft and advanced radar and telescopic surveys. However, flyby in 2029 will be an opportunity to conduct an internal…
In this paper, a practical approach to the trajectory design for asteroid exploration missions with CubeSats is presented. When applied trajectories are sought, operative concerns and uncertainties affecting the spacecraft dynamics must be…
A method for asteroid deflection that makes use of a spacecraft moving back and forth on a segment of an appropriate Keplerian orbit about the asteroid is described and evaluated. It is shown that, on average, the spacecraft describing such…
The Gravity Tractor (GT) is a fully controlled asteroid deflection concept using the mutual gravity between a robotic spacecraft and an asteroid to slowly accelerate the asteroid in the direction of the "hovering" spacecraft. Based on early…