Orbit ready asteroid kinetic interceptor concept

Paper number

IAC-17,E5,4,6,x37292

Year

2017

Abstract

In recent years the global space community has increased its efforts to prepare for collision avoidance and impact mitigation of potentially hazardous objects. These efforts focus on detecting and tracking near Earth objects in general and specifically potentially hazardous objects, as well as the formation of disaster management procedures in case of impact and research into deflection mission concepts. To-date, two deflection strategies are considered most feasible for asteroid deflection. These are; nuclear blast deflection and kinetic interception. Although kinetic interceptor is limited in the size of the potentially hazardous object deflected, it is more viable given the complexity of launching a nuclear device to space and is suitable for small potentially hazardous objects which hit the Earth more frequently.
The concept of kinetic interception requires the performance of momentum transfer from the interceptor to the potentially hazardous object which sufficiently perturbs the object's orbit and prevents its Earth collision. The two main interceptor characteristics that affect the magnitude of momentum transferred are the interceptor-object relative velocity and the interceptor mass. The magnitude of these two characteristics is limited by the Earth’s current launch capabilities, which effectively govern the size of potentially hazardous objects that can be deflected by a kinetic interceptor.    
In this paper the concept of an orbit ready kinetic interceptor system is presented. Such a system is relevant for short warning time small-medium size (20-300 meter diameter) potentially hazardous objects. The concept reduces the time from detection to interception of the potentially hazardous objects and allows for an in-orbit construction of a larger kinetic interceptor. The paper examines the near Earth asteroid population focusing on the distribution of their approach trajectories together with the possible range of interceptor masses and relative velocities to optimize different parking orbits for the system’s agents.

Abstract document

IAC-17,E5,4,6,x37292.brief.pdf

Manuscript document

(absent)