Mission Analysis For the Ion Beam Deflection of Fictitious Asteroid 2015PDC

TL;DR

This paper investigates a mission scenario using ion beam shepherd technology to deflect a fictitious asteroid, focusing on trajectory design, covariance estimation, and impact mitigation strategies for different worst-case impact sites.

Contribution

It presents a comprehensive mission analysis for asteroid deflection using ion beam shepherd, including trajectory planning, covariance analysis, and impact mitigation, which is a novel integrated approach.

Findings

Displacing impact points to low-population areas is most effective.

Low thrust rendezvous trajectory design is feasible for asteroid deflection.

Impact mitigation can be achieved through impact point displacement.

Abstract

A realistic mission scenario for the deflection of fictitious asteroid 2015PDC is investigated that makes use of the ion beam shepherd concept as primary deflection technique. The article deals with the design of a low thrust rendezvous trajectory to the asteroid, the estimation of the propagated covariance ellipsoid and the outcome of a slow-push deflection starting from three worst case scenarios (impacts in New Delhi, Dhaka and Teheran). Displacing the impact point towards very low populated areas, as opposed to full deflection, is found to be the simplest and most effective mitigation approach. Mission design, technical and political aspects are discussed.