The June (vol. 219) issue of Acta Astronautica is… impulsive, maybe brutish.
Villegas-Prados, D. Cruz, J. Wijnen, M. et al. Emission and performance charaterization of io… p. 97 .224.03.013
Muniyasamy, S. B, S. Verma, V. et al. Periodicity and lifetime of objects around elongated as… p.195 .02.046
Tanaka, Y. Takao, Y. Magnetic field configuration effects on a miniature DC ion thruster with… p. 243 .03.010
Wang, K. Zhou, Q. Liu, Y. et al. Research on space-based kinetic impactor disrupting small-… p.291 .03.007
Bellerose, J. Bhaskaran, S. Ruth, B. et al. Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART): Naviga… p.417 .02.021
That’s two papers on electric propulsion, this issue alone; do I have to repeat yet again why high-efficiency, low-thrust tech is a natural fit for asteroid work?
Once there, we have a dynamics work: how does one orbit a nonspherical body, potentially non-homogeneous (rock vs. ice vs. void)? There’s more math, but the problem is solvable.
And then we have two planetary-defense papers: ramming hazardous objects with a defense mission. In DART’s case, this is a hindsight paper on the mission tech and its implementation. In the Chinese work, they find ‘pre-positioning’ impactor spacecraft a viable strategy. This is a topic for discussion- thorough discussion, because a defense launch looks like a weapon, too (a “dual-use technology”). Unilateral pre-positioning of such a capability looks like a threat to the other ‘laterals’ (not the least of which are Taiwan, India, Japan, etc.). Really looks like a threat: this is something that we need to discuss. Here’s one more step.