The population of "temporarily captured asteroids" offers attractive candidates for asteroid retrieval missions. Once naturally captured, these asteroids have lifetimes ranging from a few months up to several years in the vicinity of the Earth. One could potentially extend the duration of such temporary capture phases by acting upon the asteroid with slow deflection techniques that conveniently modify their trajectories, allowing for an affordable access and in situ study. In this paper, a case study on asteroid 2006 RH120 is presented, which was temporarily captured during 2006-2007 and is the single known member of this category to date. Simulations estimate that deflecting the asteroid with 0.27 N for less than six months and a change of velocity, ΔV of barely 32 m/s would have sufficed to extend the capture for over five additional years. The study is extended to another nine virtual asteroids, showing that low-ΔV (less than 15 m/s) and low-thrust (less than 1 N) deflections initiated a few years in advance may extend their capture phase for several years, and even decades. Presented as Paper 2014-0276 at the 24th AAS-AIAA Space Flight Mechanics Meetings, Santa Fe, NM, 26-30 January 2014


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    Title :

    Temporarily Captured Asteroids as a Pathway to Affordable Asteroid Retrieval Missions




    Publication date :

    2015




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English



    Classification :

    BKL:    55.54 Flugführung
    Local classification TIB:    770/7040



    Temporarily Captured Asteroids as a Pathway to Affordable Asteroid Retrieval Missions

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