Asteroids and comets that cross Earth’s orbit pose a credible risk of impact, with potentially severe disturbances to Earth and society. Numerous risk mitigation strategies have been described, most involving dedicated missions to a threatening object. We propose an orbital planetary defense system capable of heating the surface of potentially hazardous objects to the vaporization point as a feasible approach to impact risk mitigation. We call the system DE-STAR for Directed Energy System for Targeting of Asteroids and exploRation. DE-STAR is a modular phased array of kilowatt class lasers powered by photovoltaic's. Modular design allows for incremental development, test, and initial deployment, lowering cost, minimizing risk, and allowing for technological co-development, leading eventually to an orbiting structure that would be developed in stages with both technological and target milestones. The main objective of DE-STAR is to use the focused directed energy to raise the surface spot temperature to ~3,000K, allowing direct vaporization of all known substances. In the process of heating the surface ejecting evaporated material a large reaction force would alter the asteroid’s orbit. The baseline system is a DE-STAR 3 or 4 (1-10km array) depending on the degree of protection desired. A DE-STAR 4 allows for asteroid engagement starting beyond 1AU with a spot temperature sufficient to completely evaporate up to 500-m diameter asteroids in one year. Small asteroids and comets can be diverted/evaporated with a DESTAR 2 (100m) while space debris is vaporized with a DE-STAR 1 (10m).


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    Titel :

    Directed energy planetary defense


    Beteiligte:
    Lubin, Philip (Autor:in) / Hughes, Gary B. (Autor:in) / Bible, Johanna (Autor:in) / Bublitz, Jesse (Autor:in) / Arriola, Josh (Autor:in) / Motta, Caio (Autor:in) / Suen, Jon (Autor:in) / Johansson, Isabella (Autor:in) / Riley, Jordan (Autor:in) / Sarvian, Nilou (Autor:in)

    Kongress:

    Nanophotonics and Macrophotonics for Space Environments VII ; 2013 ; San Diego,California,United States


    Erschienen in:

    Erscheinungsdatum :

    2013-09-24





    Medientyp :

    Aufsatz (Konferenz)


    Format :

    Elektronische Ressource


    Sprache :

    Englisch



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