Development of Hands-On Introductory Planetary Defense Course

摘要

The Aerospace Corporation is a California nonprofit corporation that provides its clients with scientific and engineering support on space and space-related systems. The Corporation's technical staff has prepared an introductory planetary defense class to explain unique hazards posed by Near Earth Objects (NEOs) and describe efforts for discovering and tracking NEOs and mitigating their impact threat. The class reviews asteroid and comet threat types and mitigation strategies, and concludes with a hands-on exercise using interactive NEO deflection simulator software developed at The Aerospace Corporation for NASA. Simulator development was in response to findings and recommendations from US government studies and International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) Planetary Defense Conferences. These studies highlight the need to identify NEO deflection options and design and test techniques that might be used to mitigate future collision threats. The simulator tool utilizes a set of fictitious, but realistic, NEOs on Earth-impact trajectories and employs one or several intercepting spacecraft that slightly alter the NEO velocity to prevent a future collision with Earth. The simulator accounts for realistic launch capability for identifying feasible deflection solutions, limitations and challenges. By interacting with this on-line tool, the user learns valuable lessons for designing feasible NEO deflection strategies. The web-tool helps promote public awareness and preparedness, provides insight into the NEO threat and its mitigation, increases the general knowledge on the topic and its unique challenges, and aids in finding feasible NEO deflection solutions. The tool and its detailed documentation were delivered to NASA in mid-2014 and will be added to the JPL website for public outreach. The Planetary Defense class has been held three times at The Aerospace Corporation between June and September 2014.