Gravity tractor

A Gravity tractor (GT) is a spacecraft that deflects another object in space, typically a potentially hazardous asteroid that might impact Earth, without physically contacting it, using only its gravitational field to transmit the required impulse. [Lu, E.T. and Love, S.G. (2005) Nature, 438, 177-178.] [ Yeomans, D.K. et al (2005) [www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/acm2008/pdf/8273.pdf] ] The tractor spacecraft could either hover near the object being deflected or orbit near it. The concept has the advantage that essentially nothing need be known about the mechanical composition and structure of the asteroid in advance.

Advantages ["Threat Mitigation: The Gravity Tractor" (2006) Schweickart, Russell; Chapman, Clark; Durda, Dan; Hut, Piet, Submitted to NASA Workshop on Near-Earth Objects, Vail, Colorado, June 2006 [arXiv:physics/0608157.pdf] ]

A number of considerations arise concerning means for avoiding a devastating collision with an asteroidal object, should one be discovered on a trajectory that were determined to lead to Earth impact at some future date. The one that has caused the greatest concern is how to transmit the impulse required (possibly quite large), to an asteroid of unknown mass, composition, and mechanical strength, without shattering it into fragments, some of which might be themselves dangerous to Earth if left in a collision orbit.The GT solves this problem by gently accelerating the object as a whole over an extended period of time, using the spacecraft's own mass and associated gravitational field to effect the necessary deflecting force.Because of the universality of gravitation, affecting as it does all mass alike, the asteroid would be accelerated almost uniformly as a whole, with only tidal forces (which should be very small) causing any stresses to its internal structure.

A further advantage is that a transponder on the spacecraft, by continuously monitoring the position and velocity of the tractor/asteroid system, could enable the post-deflection trajectory of the asteroid to be accurately known, ensuring its final placement into a safe orbit.

Limitations

The most important limitations of the tractor concept are that if the required impulse is large, it requires a correspondingly massive spacecraft, a large propulsion capability on the part of the tractor spacecraft, and a long period to effect the change. If the mass of the asteroidal body is "M" and the change in its velocity required is "V" , then the change in its momentum is "p" :

:: $p\; =\; MV\; =\; Ft,$

where "F" is the average force, applied over a time "t" .By the law of conservation of momentum, which equivalent to Newton's Third Law of action and reaction, the spacecraft propulsion must provide the same total impulse.Also, in order that the spacecraft not simply be driven off to infinity by this propulsive force, it must be balanced, on the average, by the gravitational attraction of the asteroid for the spacecraft. Since the gravitational attraction is likely to be fairly small for a spacecraft of reasonable mass, the time "t" is likely to be rather long.This in turn entails that the spacecraft, necessarily massive already, must match velocity with the asteroid, further increasing the propulsive capability required, and then orbit or hover above it for an extended period.The high propulsion capability needed, together with the rather low thrust required, suggests an ion drive as the appropriate thruster. Sationkeeping or maintaining a stable orbit close to the asteroid would be complicated if the object has a complex shape or a complex rotational behavior, as was the case for the NEAR mission the that visited 433 Eros.If the asteroid were a binary system, which is now known to be fairly common, the situation would be yet more complex, though surely still manageable.In any case, the tractor method appears most useful for objects of low to moderate mass, needing modest corrective impulse, and for which an extended period of time is available to effect the correction.

Example

To get a feel for the magnitude of these issues, let us suppose that a NEO of size around 100 m, and mass of one million metric tons, threatened to impact Earth. Suppose also that

* a velocity correction of 1 cm/s would be adequate to place it in a safe and stable orbit, missing Earth

* that the correction needed to be applied within a period of 10 years.

With these parameters, the required impulse would be: "V" × "M" = 0.01 [m/s] ×10⁹ [kg] = 10⁷ [N-s] , so that the average average tractor force on the asteroid for 10 years, = 3.156×10⁸ s, would need to be about 0.032 newtons. An ion-electric spacecraft with a specific impulse of 10,000 N-s per kg, corresponding to an ion beam velocity of 10 km/s (about twice that obtained with the best chemical rockets), would require 1,000 kg of reaction mass (Xe is currently favored) to provide the impulse. The kinetic power of the ion beam would then be approximately 317 W; the input electric power to the power converter and ion drive would of course be substantially higher.The spacecraft would need to have enough mass and remain sufficiently close to the asteroid that the component of the average gravitational force on the asteroid in the desired direction would equal or exceed the required 0.032 N.

Considering possible hovering positions or orbits of the tractor around the asteroid, note that if two objects are gravitationally bound in a mutual orbit, then if one receives an arbitrary impulse which is less that that needed to free it from orbit around the other, because of the gravitational forces between them, the impulse will alter the momentum of both, together regarded as a composite system. That is, so long as the tractor remains in a bound orbit, any propulsive force applied to it will be effectively transferred to the asteroid it orbits.This permits a wide variety of orbits or hovering strategies for the tractor.One obvious possibility is for the spacecraft to orbit the NEO with the normal to the orbit in the direction of the desired force. The ion beam would then be directed in the opposite direction, also perpendicular to the orbit plane. This would result in the plane of the orbit being shifted somewhat away from the center of the asteroid, "towing" it, while the orbital velocity, normal to the thrust, remains constant. The orbital period would be a few hours, essentially independent of size, but weakly dependent on the density of the target body.

References

External links

* [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070217-asteroid-impact.html National Geographic, February 17, 2007]

* [http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8291 New Scientist, November 9, 2005]

* [http://www.b612foundation.org B612 Foundation]