Deflecting asteroids

The UK’s first engineering feasibility study into missions for deflecting asteroids has begun, with joint research undertaken by the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is funding a new three-year study into interception and deflection strategies for asteroids found to be on a collision course with Earth. Although there have been similar studies in the past, Dr. Gianmarco Radice, of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Glasgow, and Professor Colin McInnes, of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Strathclyde, are approaching the subject in a new way.

“We will be looking at this as engineers, so we want to investigate the practicality of different deflection strategies,” explained Professor Colin McInnes. “In other words, it is no use having a brilliant deflection scheme if no one can build it with current technology.”

Although Hollywood blockbuster films have popularised the idea of using nuclear weapons to blow up asteroids, the study will investigate more realistic alternatives such as space mirrors. Such mirrors would be angled to focus sunlight onto the incoming object, and the intense heat would boil away a section of the asteroid, creating a natural rocket that pushes the asteroid in the opposite direction. The study will also look into high-speed collisions to literally knock an asteroid out of the way using no explosives, just a ‘battering ram’ spacecraft.