Euro space boffins hatch comms satellite hijack plan to save Earth from extinction
- Reference: 1626192910
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/07/13/airbus_commsat_crashing_plan/
- Source link:
Rather than sending teams of astronauts, cosmonauts, and unlikely groups of oil workers to destroy the incoming rock with nuclear weapons, the European rocket scientists reckon they could knock it off course by pelting it with hijacked communications satellites.
The Airbus/ESA whitecoats felt that if humanity detected a possible asteroid impactor early enough to give us three years' warning, given the time it would take for any solution to get to the point of impact, it still might not give us enough time to create, build, and launch a suitable defence.
[1]
This means that if we were going to try and deflect the asteroid (a proposal which is probably easier and more predictable in its results than trying to blow it up, as depicted in the movies [2]Armageddon and [3]Deep Impact ), we would ideally need something that is big, heavy, steerable, and numerous.
[4]
[5]
Fortunately for us, we already have an ample supply of such resources. Modern comms satellites are chunky beasts that can weigh between four and six tonnes. They normally live on [6]geostationary orbits around the Earth's equator, in a band 22,236 miles (35,786km) from the planet's surface. They also have engines to keep them on station and aligned with the relevant transmitters on Earth.
And there are also a lot of them, with 15 such satellites being ordered in 2019 alone. This means that during any given year, there will normally be more than a dozen comms satellites at various stages of construction.
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The Airbus/ESA plan – known as [8]the Fast Kinetic impactor Deflection mission, or FastKD – is to "hijack" the production of those satellites at whatever stage they are at, remove the communications equipment, install a new kinetic deflector (KD) pack incorporating more engines and control gear, load it on a rocket, and launch it at our potential incoming doom.
Although the six-tonne interceptors would be tiny in comparison to the 1000-ft (304.8m) diameter asteroid projected in the FastKD study*, if the world was able to get them launched quickly enough to hit the rock far enough away, the tiny changes in trajectory caused would hopefully be enough to nudge it away from its collision course.
The speed of the project is therefore key. Given a time of three years between detection and projected Earth impact, the FastKD timeline allows only six months for political decision-making and the commandeering, adaptation and testing of under-construction satellites. It also allows only a one-month window to launch all of the necessary vehicles, in order to have them hit the incoming asteroid in quick succession for maximum effect.
[9]NASA's first asteroid sample on its way to Earth after OSIRIS-REx boosts for home
[10]ESA signs off on contracts for lunar data relay and navigation
[11]Research into deflecting potentially world-destroying asteroids is apparently not a 'national priority' for the UK
[12]Russian boffins blow up teeny asteroids with tiny laser... to work out how to nuke the real thing
Despite the difficult timeframe, Albert Falke, the project lead at Airbus, thinks it is possible.
"These telecommunication platforms, in addition to being large and heavy, are also built with quite a high frequency," he said [13]in an interview with Space.com . "That means we can expect them to be available readily in the integration facilities. That's something we can take for granted."
[14]
With [15]a prospective extinction-level impact on the cards, you'd hope so. Having the birds ready to be hijacked is not the only possible problem, though.
"The bottleneck will be the rockets," Falke added. "[But] we think we could expect about 10 to 15 launches available within one month around the entire globe." This sounds optimistic, but it's that or we all die so you'd hope everyone would be on board.
After launch, the kinetic deflectors would cruise for 6-18 months before hopefully hitting their target. Our continued survival as a species would at that point depend on the boffins getting their maths right.
They will be helped in this by [16]the NASA DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) project , which is on track to intercept an asteroid called Didymos in September next year. NASA then intends to crash an 600kg impactor into Didymos's 160m (520ft) diameter moonlet at a speed of 6.6km per second (4.1 miles per second) just to see what happens.
Hopefully the DART project will allow impact-dodging scientists of all kinds to perfect their extinction-avoidance techniques in a way that will not make Liv Tyler cry, a criteria which everyone agrees exceeds all others in importance. ®
[17]Youtube Video
*Although FastKD does not give a mass for the asteroid, the similarly sized [18]99942 Apophis – which is expected to come within 19,800 miles (31,900km) of Earth in 2029 – is estimated to weigh around 61 million tonnes. We at The Register suspect an impact by such an object would make Liv Tyler very, very unhappy indeed, so is to be avoided at all costs.
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[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YO4M-6F1yvxgNVWWVsYD3wAAAMI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSrmvsvLzbY
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_SiSA-M2rc
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YO4M-6F1yvxgNVWWVsYD3wAAAMI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
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[6] https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/basics/chapter5-1/#types
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YO4M-6F1yvxgNVWWVsYD3wAAAMI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://az659834.vo.msecnd.net/eventsairwesteuprod/production-atpi-public/8195e7b8bd394ac6bde779211787ebac
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/10/nasas_asteroid_sample/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/21/esa_moonlight/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/16/esa_hera_contract/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2018/03/13/russians_blow_up_teeny_tiny_asteroids_with_a_teeny_tiny_laser/
[13] https://www.space.com/asteroid-deflection-with-telecommunication-satellites
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YO4M-6F1yvxgNVWWVsYD3wAAAMI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2019/09/10/geoboffins_dinosaur_killer/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2019/06/04/binary_asteroid_nasa_dart/
[17] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2wUKgsLzbI
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/28/apophis_asteroid_safe/
[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Forget telecom sats
Launch laser-sharks with rayguns
I think the gene editing program to adapt sharks to breathing vacuum might take longer than a few months.
[Icon nearest approximation to wearing laser googles.]
Re: Forget telecom sats
hedge: "Launch laser-sharks with rayguns"
Surely they would only glory in the demise of their ape-descendent overlords by asteroid strike and seek to rule in our place?
Re: Forget telecom sats
Trying for Sharknado VI ?
Just to see what happens
I hope the Didymos bashing boffins have at least a little idea of what might happen post bash, like not heading directly to Earth.
It may not be as big as some of the rocks out there but it sounds as though there would be a bit more than bashing out the dent and a lick of paint for the planet.
Launchers?
"[But] we think we could expect about 10 to 15 launches available within one month around the entire globe."
What's the turnround time on a Falcon Heavy?
Am I missing something...
Why can't we just build and put a large number of these deflectors (with a big booster) into orbit well above GEO before we actually need them?
One a month, every month, no panic, no stress, failed launch? meh.
That way we could, you know, possibly get some practise shots in and actually be in a position to launch several dozen immediately when really needed.
Re: Am I missing something...
The cost of doing that before they're needed. We'd still be haggling with the beancounters when the damn thing hits. Also, with the current Hubble situation in mind, would something that's been in orbit for a long time be in a workable condition when it's needed?
Re: Am I missing something...
Yeah, really. We don't exactly have a good track record of doing things before they're needed.
A Coronavirus vaccine was in development after the original SARS outbreak of 2003. It was ready for human trials in 2016. Nobody was interested in funding it.
Use nuke warheads
A 1 megaton nuke weighs less than these comms satellites - fitted with proximity radar to explode 1 km from the target asteroid (or comet) would cause sufficient path change if only one reached the target 1 month or more before impact. (A 20kph velocity change would suffice at 1 month before impact - a 1MT bomb detonated 1km away should provide more than enough of a shove.)
Appropriate icon ===========>
Re: Use nuke warheads
Umm. No blast wave in space, so is the idea that the radiation vaporizes the asteroid surface, and that is what kicks the asteroid? But at 1km distance from an (eg) 1km-sized object, you are wasting a lot of energy, since a lot more than half of it will miss. It's not obvious to me that you'll have much effect on the asteroid's momentum. Anyone got a link to some calculations?
Re: Use nuke warheads
[1]https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a36122690/government-tests-using-nuclear-weapons-to-deflect-asteroids/
[1] https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a36122690/government-tests-using-nuclear-weapons-to-deflect-asteroids/
Implausible
Repurposing in orbit satellite's small station keeping thrusters to try to intercept an asteroid is Implausible to say the least.
A far more reasonable idea would be to attach a large mass to the orbital transfer vehicles which put satellites in to the correct orbit, and have that crash in to the asteroid.
Re: Implausible
That's not what's being proposed although it was how I read the headline.
What is being proposed is something akin to what you suggest, except that the large mass is stuffed into it into the satellite chassis instead of the usual electronics. Presumably the idea of doing it this way is that the satellite itself has all the necessary bits to connect to the launch vehicle although a lot of expensive stuff that wouldn't be needed. Why not build a fleet of deflectors containing no more than is required to do the job designed to fit each generation of launch vehicles? It would cut out a lot of arguing and lead time if all that had to be done was commandeer the actual launches.
Blue Galactic
Why are we sending perfectly good satellites? Surely Bezos and Branson can cram a few hundred tons of ultra wealthy into an earth saving mission and make a profit.
Forget telecom sats
Launch laser-sharks with rayguns