• Corpus ID: 238583742

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, and… 
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