This area will cover relevant news of the threat to the planet from Near Earth Objects (NEOs) including concepts and designs for mitigation. All opinions are those of the author.

21 November 2010

Paper: "Accessibility of the resources of near Earth space using multi-impulse transfers"

"Accessibility of the resources of near Earth space using multi-impulse transfers"

Sanchez, J.P. and McInnes, Colin R. (2010) Accessibility of the resources of near Earth space using multi-impulse transfers. In: 2010 AIAA/AAS Astrodynamics Specialist Conference, 2-5 August 2010, Toronto, Canada. (Submitted)

Abstract: Most future concepts for exploration and exploitation of space require a large initial mass in low Earth orbit. Delivering this mass requires overcoming Earth's natural gravity well, which imposes a distinct obstacle to space-faring. An alternative for future space progress is to search for resources in-situ among the near Earth asteroid population. This paper examines the scenario of future utilization of asteroid resources. The near Earth asteroid resources that could be transferred to a bound Earth orbit are determined by integrating the probability of finding asteroids inside the Keplerian orbital element space of the set of transfers with an specific energy smaller than a given threshold. Transfers are defined by a series of impulsive maneuvers and computed using the patched-conic approximation. The results show that even moderately low energy transfers enable access to a large mass of resources.

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Link: Paper (PDF)

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