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Diemos-Space, a Spanish space technology company, is conducting a feasibility study of a mission specifically designed to test planetary defence, reports BBC Online. The Don Quixote mission intends to change the path of an asteroid by crashing a space probe into it at a speed of around 10 kilometres per second and then observe the effects with another spacecraft. Diemos-Space aim to change the asteroid's orbit by only a few millimetres. Although small this distance will be enormously important since it will provide scientists with information on how much asteroids need to be pushed in order to change their orbits. Because the collision of the probe will also create a crater it will also give scientists the opportunity to peer inside an asteroid. Observations of the colours of asteroids suggest that their surfaces have been altered by exposure to solar radiation and micrometeoroid impacts. The Don Quixote mission will allow scientists to investigate the less altered interior of an asteroid.
The NASA Deep Impact mission, which is due for launch in Jan 2004, will also test planetary defence techniques. Deep Impact will rendezvous with Comet Temple 1 in July 2005 and use a smart impactor to create a crater on the comet's nucleus. The crater will expose new ices below the surface of the comet and produce a jet of gas as they are heated by the Sun that may cause a small change in the comet's orbit. Like Don Quixote, the crater produced by Deep Impact on Comet Temple 1 will allow scientists to examine the interior of the comet.
Scientists have already examined how in theory an asteroid and comet on a collision course with the Earth could be diverted and have concluded that, given sufficient warning, it is possible to change their orbits. The Deep Impact and Don Quixote missions will provide the additional information needed to predict exactly how an object could be deflected.
The feasibility study into the Don Quixote is being supported by the European Space Agency (ESA). Diemos-Space hope that Don Quixote will be selected as one of ESA's missions and, unlike the windmill charging character of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra's novel, will help defend us against a very real natural hazard.
More info: BBC Online Article
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