The International Journal of Impact Engineering is, of course, within scope of this blog. Individual issues may or may not be, though. But October (vol. 204) is:
Westra, A. Damazo, J. Martinez, D. et al. Asteroid deflection: Do multiple impacts from a split-impactor increase total momentum transfer? Art 105363 .2025.105363
Huang, H. Chen, X. Jiang, X. et al. Medium-high kinetic energy impact on asteroids-The influence of target compressive strength and projectile velocity on momentum en… Art 105385 .2025.105385
Liu, Y. Zhou, Q. Li, M. Analysis of the impactor simulation modeling on the dynamic response of kinetic impact for asteroid defense Art 105393 .2025.105393
Again, I don’t mean to dwell on doomerism and negativity, but this is scholarly work on a real subject. Westra et al. consider dual impactors- in the manner of MIT’s Icarus Project, Deep Impact, LCROSS, and Chinese concepts. Even MMX resembles a multistage vehicle, and might be drafted into service. A dual mission is not twice as expensive- do we get twice the results?
Huang et al., in the light of the DART results, try to extend it to more general cases. The factor “beta”, or momentum enhancement, is the additional push from the spall of asteroid material that comes flying out of an impactor-type deflection attempt. In the case of DART at Dimorphos, beta was surprisingly big because lots of stuff was splashed out by the impact. But will this replicate at other asteroids, or was Dimorphos a lucky break?
DART means we have more than guesswork- even if the mission was a lucky shot, we now have real-world results instead of handwaving. Like Huang et al., Liu et al. consider the broader implications. We must still use the tools we have for anything other than a DART-like impactor at a Didymos-like target. Are our tools reliable, or do we still need faster computers?