Protect the Earth from asteroid impacts with solar wind

Illustration of protecting earth from asteroid by using reflector

Assuming the Earth will be hit by Asteroid and we must prepare everything that is needed to protect our live. The same version was explained by Hollywood movie titled Armageddon. Unfortunately, it was a giant asteroid that could have devastating impact on the Earth so they have to stop it before reaching the Earth. The mission for stopping it was sending the crews to plant nuclear bomb by drilling the asteroid so the asteroid is divided into two pieces. Meanwhile, the explosion also could change the direction of impact. But, this mission is too dangerous for human. So what are we going to do?

Near Earth Asteroids(NEAs) are considered as threat because it could have devastating impact to the planet. And since 1999, the list of near earth asteroids has been updated continuously to prevent unexpected situation although the risk currently is sufficiently low. Nevertheless, it is our duty to prevent everything including preparing the plan for protecting the Earth from Asteroids’ impacts.

There are many proposals that have been proposed by many scientists. Installing laser on the orbit of the Earth and the laser station could be controlled from the Earth, utilization of gravitational coupling between the asteroid and massive spacecraft also becomes promising idea since the use of nuclear or weaponry is not used. Idea that is not related to nuclear warhead are promising because it will not rise political issues among countries around the world. Meanwhile, another idea suggested called Kinetic Energy Impactor (KEI) which can deflect the trajectory of asteroid by sending spacecraft or projectile to collide.

Using kinetic energy impactor is considered as the most efficient methods for changing the direction of the asteroids because it uses solar radiation pressure to produce an acceleration[1]. Meanwhile, the use of solar sail could aid the spacecraft that is utilized to bring the equipment to perform high-energy orbit transfers [2]. Therefore, to accelerate the projectile that will be used for deflecting the asteroid could be regarded as a viable decision.

The scientists had performed the simulation of asteroid impacts and they found that the electric solar wind sail kinetic energy impactor was able to deflect the asteroids impacts. Based on their simulation which analyzed parameters such as deflection distance and impact velocity, they found that the trajectory of the asteroids could be disturbed and the sail kinetic energy impactor could alternate the trajectory into several kilometers before the asteroids reach the Earth orbit.

In overall, the solar sail kinetic energy impactor is efficient to become one of the Earth’s protector. However, the only main problem is to set up the instruments perfectly. The simulation which was conducted assumed the energy impactor having perfect characteristics of flat, square solar sail so it can perfectly reflect the area of asteroids impact.

References
[1] K. Yamaguchi and H. Yamakawa, "Electric solar wind sail kinetic energy impactor for asteroid deflection missions," Journal of Astronaut Science, no. 63, pp. 1-22, 2016.
[2] C. R. McInnes, "Solar sailing," in Technology, dynamics and mission applications, 1999, pp. 32-55.
[3] Image is downloaded from http://toughsf.blogspot.com