Related papers: Directed Energy Missions for Planetary Defense
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…
There are many indications that anthropogenic global warming poses a serious threat to our civilization and its ecological support systems. Ideally this problem will be overcome by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Various space-based…
The selection of optimal targets in the search for life represents a highly important strategic issue. In this Letter, we evaluate the benefits of searching for life around a potentially habitable planet orbiting a star of arbitrary mass…
Polarized targets evolved into indispensable tools in particle and nuclear physics. However, the polarized solid target is degraded by high-intense beam irradiation, known as radiation damage due to target heating and radical generation. We…
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…
Today, the near-Earth space is facing a paradigm change as the number of new spacecraft is literally sky-rocketing. Increasing numbers of small satellites threaten the sustainable use of space, as without removal, space debris will…
Modern power systems face growing risks from cyber-physical attacks, necessitating enhanced resilience due to their societal function as critical infrastructures. The challenge is that defense of large-scale systems-of-systems requires…
Recent works demonstrated that the dynamics caused by the planetary oblateness coupled with the solar radiation pressure can be described through a model based on singly-averaged equations of motion. The coupled perturbations affect the…
A confluence of scientific, financial, and political factors imply that launching two simpler, more narrowly defined dark-energy/microlensing satellites will lead to faster, cheaper, better (and more secure) science than the present EUCLID…
Laser-accelerated lightsails enable new types of missions that are very different from the Breakthrough Starshot mission to the Centauri system that aims to send 1 gram of payload at 0.2 c. The present work widens the mission design space…
We present a method for calculating precise distances to asteroids using only two nights of data from a single location --- far too little for an orbit --- by exploiting the angular reflex motion of the asteroids due to Earth's axial…
We investigate the evaporation of close-by pulsar companions, such as planets, asteroids, and white dwarfs, by induction heating. Assuming that the outflow energy is dominated by a Poynting flux (or pulsar wave) at the location of the…
This paper presents a predictive framework for adversarial energy-depletion defense against a maneuverable inbound threat (IT). The IT solves a receding-horizon problem to minimize its own energy while reaching a high-value asset (HVA) and…
Solar Orbiter is a joint ESA-NASA mission planed for launch in October 2018. The science payload includes remote-sensing and in-situ instrumentation designed with the primary goal of understanding how the Sun creates and controls the…
A considerable fraction of the energy in a solar flare is released as suprathermal electrons; such electrons play a major role in energy deposition in the ambient atmosphere and hence the atmospheric response to flare heating. Historically…
Stars interact with their close-in planets through radiation, gravitation, and magnetic fields. We investigate the energy input to a planetary atmosphere by reconnection between stellar and planetary magnetic fields and compare it to the…
For exploration of space, in particular in attempts to find new extra-terrestrial resources, human society has encountered the problem of space pollution with human-made debris, which represents high risks for space missions. This prompted…
The two dominant radiotherapy methods are either simplified in terms of beam generation and handling, which compromises the energy deposition curve in tissues (photon therapy), or require extensive accelerator facilities and complex beam…
We consider the impact of electromagnetic induction and Ohmic heating on a conducting planetary object that orbits a magnetic star. Power dissipated as heat saps orbital energy. If this heat is trapped by an insulating crust or mantle,…
This paper examines the effectiveness of an asteroid exploration architecture comprised of multiple nanosatellite sized spacecraft deployed from a single mother ship into a heliocentric orbit in the main asteroid belt where the mothership…