PI -- Multimodal Planetary Defense

TL;DR

This paper proposes a versatile planetary defense system using small hypervelocity penetrators capable of disassembling asteroids across various warning times, significantly reducing required launch mass and response time compared to classical methods.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, single-system approach employing hypervelocity penetrators for rapid and long-term asteroid mitigation, adaptable to different threat sizes and warning scenarios.

Findings

Effective against 20-1000m asteroids with short and long warning times.

Can mitigate a 20m asteroid with 100s warning using 10m/s disruption.

Potential to eliminate asteroid impact threats with existing launch vehicles.

Abstract

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 general, it uses much less launch mass with vastly shorter required response time than classical deflection techniques The method uses an array of small hypervelocity kinetic penetrators that pulverize and disassemble an asteroid or small comet. This approach works in both long warning time, as well as in short warning scenarios with intercepts of minutes to days before impact. In longer time intercept scenarios, the disassembled asteroid fragments largely miss the Earth. In short intercept scenarios, the asteroid fragments of maximum $\sim$10-meter diameter allow the Earth's atmosphere to act as a "beam dump" with fragment burn up and/or air burst, with the primary channel of energy going into spatially and temporally de-correlated shock waves. The effectiveness of the approach depends on the intercept time and size of the asteroid but allows for effective defense against asteroids in the 20-1000m diameter class and could virtually eliminate the threat. A 20m diameter asteroid ($\sim$0.5Mt, similar to Chelyabinsk) can be mitigated with a 100s prior to impact intercept with a 10m/s disruption. With ~1m/s internal disruption, a 5 hour prior to impact intercept of a 50m diameter asteroid ($\sim$10Mt yield, similar to Tunguska), a 1 day prior to impact intercept of 100m diameter asteroid ($\sim$100Mt yield), a 20 day prior to impact intercept of Apophis ($\sim$370m diameter, $\sim$4Gt yield). The use of active (explosive) penetrators including nuclear allows the same system to mitigate extremely large threats. A "single launcher" solution to planetary defense using existing launch vehicles that achieve positive C3 becomes a viable option.