The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission demonstrated that a single impact event can move an asteroid. However, a new paper suggests a more efficient alternative

In September 2022, the DART spacecraft successfully impacted the asteroid Dimorphos, shortening its orbit by 32 minutes. Scientists considered a change of 73 seconds to be the minimum amount for success. 

According to the DART investigation team, a kinetic impactor mission like DART can be effective in altering the trajectory of an asteroid. However, Nancy Chabot, a planetary scientist and the DART coordination lead, says that a mission would need to launch years in advance to deflect a threatening asteroid safely.

An intriguing alternative solution has been proposed in a paper by Nahum Melamed and Tom Heinsheimer that utilises the concept of material ejection to slowly adjust an objects trajectory. Their centrifugal propulsion technique involves landing a centrifuge and power supply on the surface of a potential impactor

The DART mission was the first planetary defense test to explore the technological readiness for asteroid deflection. The mission’s goal was to change the moonlet’s orbital speed by a fraction of a percent

A centrifugal propulsion technique involves landing a centrifuge and power supply on the surface of a potential impactor. The system then collects portions of the asteroid and ejects them into space. The recoil’s momentum transfer slowly alters the path away from Earth. 

The Centrifugal Impulse Drive (CID) is a new form of propulsion that uses electricity to directly propel a spacecraft without expelling any mass. It’s a propellantless alternative to the ion drive and hall thruster currently used in satellites. 

The DART mission is a demonstration of a capability to respond to a potential asteroid impact threat. DART is a spacecraft designed to impact an asteroid as a test of technology

Their centrifugal propulsion technique involves landing a centrifuge and power supply on the surface of a potential impactor. The system would then collect portions of the astroid, eject them out into space allowing the momentum transfer of the recoil to slowly alter the path away from Earth

The beauty of this approach first of all is that it is not hit and hope like the ‘big bang’ options. Instead it allows for “ejection, measurement and repetition” to fine tune its trajectory and provide further adjustments as necessary. The flexibility is another wonderful benefit that the landing site, asteroid spin and velocity can all be taken into account and the direction, timing and mass of ejections can be adjusted to suit.

This process sequentially allows “ejection, measurement, and repetition” to gradually fine-tune the trajectory needed for course correction. This offers flexible operation parameters that can be varied for convenience and optimization, including the location of the landing site, weight of each ejected payload, launch speed, direction, cadence, timing of successive ejections, and the relationship to the asteroid’s velocity vector and spin axis. Once landed on an asteroid, the centrifugal system requires no consumables. Operating entirely on electrical power, it can operate indefinitely without additional support.

To date, asteroid trajectory modification techniques employ the “big bang” approach. An impulsive deflection is imparted by slamming one or more high-speed kinetic impactor spacecraft into the object or by detonation of a nuclear device in its proximity. This is a “hit it once and hope for the best” approach

The vast majority of asteroids and comets are not dangerous, and never will be. Asteroids and comets are considered potentially hazardous objects, or PHOs, if they are 100-165 feet (30-50 meters) in diameter or larger and their orbit around the Sun comes within five million miles (eight million kilometers) of Earth’s orbit. NASA’s planetary defense strategy involves detecting and tracking these objects using telescopes on the ground and in space

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission was the first to test a method of deflecting an asteroid using kinetic impactor technology. The mission was designed to assess how much a spacecraft impact deflects an asteroid by transferring momentum

The DART mission launched in November 2021 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. It arrived at the near-Earth asteroid Didymos in September 2022. On September 26, 2022, the spacecraft intentionally crashed into the asteroid’s small moon, Dimorphos. The impact was intended to change the moonlet’s orbital speed by a fraction of a percent

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