Note, Paper: Zap!

I have neglected the journal Acta Astronautica, despite March (vol. 216) being a good month:

Casanova-Álvarez, M. Navarro-Medina, F. Tommasini, D. Feasibility study of a Solar Elect… p. 129 .2024.01.001
Zhang, Z. Yu, M. Ali, M. R. et al. Investigation on plasma ionization process of a micro-cat… p. 143 .01.007
Liu, X. Li, H. Peng, Z. et al. Experimental study on the discharge of a xenon-assisted krypt… p. 295 .01.017
Connell, S. A. Applin, D. M. Turenne, N. N. et al. The Iris CubeSat mission: Science payloa… p. 381 .01.009
Wheeler, L. Dotson, J, Aftosmis, M. et al. Risk assessment for asteroid impact threat scen… p. 468 .2023.12.049

If Electric Propulsion makes Mars viable as a destination, then asteroids (with lower gravity- far lower gravity) are doubly destined.

Iris, separately, is objectively and explicitly making space weathering hard science, not speculation, or even terrestrial extrapolation. Asteroid-relevant minerals are being exposed- as we speak- to flight conditions, to (hopefully) resolve the issue of remote sensing and body characterization.

And of course, there’s the impact issue. I don’t like to be a panic-pusher, but thorough and well-reviewed exercises and ops planning, well… that’s the opposite of panicking, isn’t it?