Related papers: Threat Characterization: Trajectory Dynamics
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…
Near-Earth objects (NEOs) have the potential to cause extensive damage and loss of life on Earth. Advancements in NEO discovery, trajectory prediction, and deflection technology indicate that an impact could be prevented, with sufficient…
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…
The catalog of km-sized near-Earth objects (NEOs) is nearly complete. Typical impact monitoring analyses search for possible impacts over the next 100 years and none of the km-sized objects represent an impact threat over that time…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Throughout recorded history, humans have crossed national borders to seek safety in nearby countries. The reasons for displacement have been generated by phenomena of terrestrial origin, but exposure to unexpected extra-terrestrial threats…
The study of asteroids, its composition and trajectories, has been a persistent interest in the space exploration community. In addition, they are also perceived as a great threat to life on Earth, considering the possibility of an impact…
Several technologies have been proposed for deflecting a hazardous Solar System object on a trajectory that would otherwise impact the Earth. The effectiveness of each technology depends on several characteristics of the given object,…
Close encounters of Near Earth Objects (NEOs) with large asteroids are a possible source of systematic errors in trajectory propagations and asteroid mitigation. It is, thus, necessary to identify those large asteroids that have to be…
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…
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…
Cometary impacts pose a long-term hazard to life on Earth. Impact mitigation techniques have been studied extensively, but they tend to focus on asteroid diversion. Typical asteroid interdiction schemes involve spacecraft physically…
In the last decades Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) have become very important targets to study, since they can give us clues to the formation, evolution and composition of the Solar System. In addition, they may represent either a threat to…
We present a concept for a spacecraft that can controllably alter the trajectory of an Earth threatening asteroid using gravity as a towline. The spacecraft hovers near the asteroid with thrusters angled outward so the exhaust does not…
A set of 50,000 artificial Earth impacting asteroids was used to obtain, for the first time, information about the dominance of individual impact effects such as wind blast, overpressure shock, thermal radiation, cratering, seismic shaking,…
Numerical modeling has long suggested that gravitationally-bound (or so-called rubble-pile) near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) can be destroyed by tidal forces during close and slow encounters with terrestrial planets. However, tidal disruptions…