Related papers: Mitigating potentially hazardous asteroid impacts …
This work presents a new parametrisation suitable for parameter-space studies of heliocentric Earth-impacting orbits. Originally motivated by the issue of potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) and the mitigation of such a risk, we show…
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…
About 10% of the observed asteroids have rotational periods lower than P = 3 h and they seem to be relatively close to the spin barrier. Yet, the rotation has often been neglected in simulations of asteroid collisions. To determine the…
Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) are a special subset of Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) that can come close to the Earth and are large enough to cause significant damage in the event of an impact. Observations and researches of Earth-PHAs…
Asteroid impacts pose a major threat to all life on Earth. The age of the dinosaurs was abruptly ended by a 10-km-diameter asteroid. Currently, a nuclear device is the only means of deflecting large Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs)…
Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs), a special subset of Near-Earth Objects, are both dangerous and scientifically valuable. PHAs that truly undergo close approaches with the Earth (dubbed CAPHAs) are of particular interest and…
We present a practical and effective method of planetary defense that allows for extremely short mitigation time scales if required as well as long time scale mitigation. This one system allows for virtually any required defense mode. In…
Tumbling asteroids belong to a small group of objects, whose angular velocity vector is unaligned with any of its principal axes of inertia. This leads to challenging efforts to model the trajectory of any spacecraft designed to orbit these…
This work develops low-energy spacecraft (SC) trajectories using Venus gravity assists to study asteroids during heliocentric transfer segments between planetary encounters. The study focuses on potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) as…
We aim at providing a preliminary approach on the dynamics of a spacecraft in orbit about the asteroid (99942) Apophis during its Earth close approach. The physical properties from the polyhedral shape of the target are derived assigning…
Our knowledge of the strengths of small bodies in the Solar System is limited by our poor understanding of their internal structures, and this, in turn, clouds our understanding of the formation and evolution of these bodies. Observations…
Short-arc orbit determination is crucial when an asteroid is first discovered. In these cases usually the observations are so few that the differential correction procedure may not converge. We have developed an initial orbit computation…
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…
We present recent improvements of the modeling of the disruption of strength dominated bodies using the Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) technique. The improvements include an updated strength model and a friction model, which are…
A method for classifying orbits near asteroids under a polyhedral gravitational field is presented, and may serve as a valuable reference for spacecraft orbit design for asteroid exploration. The orbital dynamics near asteroids are very…
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…
The current philosophy of impact hazard considers the danger from small asteroids negligible. However, several facts claim for a revision of this philosophy. In this paper, some of these facts are reviewed and discussed. It is worth noting…
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…
Numerical simulations of asteroid break-ups, including both the fragmentation of the parent body and the gravitational interactions between the fragments, have allowed us to reproduce successfully the main properties of asteroid families…
We propose an adaptation of the semilinear algorithm for the prediction of the impact corridor on ground of an Earth-impacting asteroid. The proposed algorithm provides an efficient tool, able to reliably predict the impact regions at fixed…