Near-Earth Asteroid Deflection Mission Using Coulomb Force Attractor

Abstract

A method for controlling a Coulomb force attractor spacecraft in the vicinity of an asteroid is presented. A Coulomb force attractor tows and deflects an asteroid through a combination of mutual gravitational and Coulomb forces. We show asteroid deflection distances with time before impact and the required fuel consumption for efficient mission design with limited resources. By considering the asteroid and the spacecraft as a single body, motion is represented with the separation distance between the spacecraft and the asteroid and two Eulerian angles. We also investigate linearized dynamics and identify the stability requirements using the Routh-Hurwiz stability criterion. Numerical simulations are also performed and the feedback law to stabilize the position of the spacecraft is investigated. By investigating the interaction between the separation distance and Eulerian angles, we propose and evaluate a method for independently controlling each motion.