Electric Sail Missions to Potentially Hazardous Asteroids

Abstract Missions towards potentially hazardous asteroids require considerable propellant-mass consumption and complex flybys maneuvers with conventional propulsion systems. A very promising option is offered by an electric sail, an innovative propulsion concept, that uses the solar-wind dynamic pressure for generating a continuous and nearly radial thrust without the need for reaction mass. The aim of this paper is to investigate the performance of such a propulsion system for performing rendezvous missions towards all the currently known potentially hazardous asteroids, a total of 1025 missions. The problem is studied in an optimal framework by minimizing the total flight time. Assuming a canonical value of sail characteristic acceleration, we show that about 67% of the potentially hazardous asteroids may be reached within one year of mission time, with 137 rendezvous in the first six months. A detailed study towards asteroid 99942 Apophis is reported, and a comparison with the corresponding performance achievable with a flat solar sail is discussed.

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