A Mass-optimized Gravity Tractor for Asteroid Deflection
@inproceedings{Ketema2021AMG, title={A Mass-optimized Gravity Tractor for Asteroid Deflection}, author={Yohannes Ketema}, year={2021} }
A method for asteroid deflection that makes use of a spacecraft moving back and forth on a segment of a Keplerian orbit about the asteroid is studied with the aim of optimizing the initial gross mass of the spacecraft. The corresponding optimization problem is formulated as a discrete nonlinear optimal control problem where the parameters of the orbit segment are the control variables. A hypothetical asteroid deflection problem is solved numerically using the method of dynamic programming, andβ¦Β
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