Mission Analysis for Multiple Rendezvous of Near-Earth Asteroids Using Earth Gravity Assist

Abstract

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) catalog of near-Earth objects (NEOs) such as asteroids and comets contains over 6600 asteroids and 150 comets as of February of 2010. This includes over 1000 potentially hazardous asteroids, or objects with orbits that pass close enough to Earth to pose a potential impact threat. The asteroid community believes there are a significant number of objects still undiscovered, which makes finding, tracking, and calculating missions to study these objects an active area of research. This study was based on finding orbit solutions using Earth gravity assist to visit one NEO a year for 16 years with minimal characteristic velocities for a conventional impulsive thrust propulsion system. Using a user-defined launch date, the program iterates on a number of variables to populate lists of acceptable targets and outputs key mission parameters and 3D plots of the orbits involved.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 2010
Accession Number
ADA517553

Entities

People

  • Uriah J. Tobey

Organizations

  • Air Force Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Aphelions
  • Artificial Satellites
  • Astronautics
  • Elliptical Orbits
  • Engineering
  • Engineers
  • Equations Of Motion
  • Jet Propulsion
  • Perihelions
  • Propulsion Systems
  • Solar System
  • Space Propulsion
  • Spacecraft
  • Three Dimensional
  • Transfer Orbits
  • United States

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Space Exploration and Orbital Mechanics.

Technology Areas

  • Space
  • Space - Orbital Debris