Stardust-R addresses the growing need for a sustainable exploitation of space, the resilience of the space environment, the threat and opportunities coming from asteroids and comets.
Asteroids and space debris represent a significant hazard for both space and terrestrial assets, but they also represent an important commercial and scientific opportunity. From the exploitation of in-situ resources on asteroids, to on orbit servicing, from the exploration and characterisation of minor bodies to advanced concepts like the Phoenix programme of DARPA, both asteroids and space debris represent one of the most interesting challenges of space science and technology. Some scholars theorise that the Kessler syndrome (where the density of objects in orbit is high enough that collisions could set off a cascade) has already begun and is simply proceeding at a slow pace. Furthermore, current plans to inject increasingly larger constellations of small satellites into space and the emergence of the New Space trend, will critically increase the traffic. This requires a substantially new approach to collision avoidance and satellite operations, even before thinking of debris removal and satellite disposal. The impact on the space environment is going to be unprecedented, posing a serious question on its stability and resilience to any incident or anomalous event.
Although statistically less likely to occur, an asteroid impact would have devastating consequences for our planet. An impact with a large to medium (~10 km to ~300 m diameter) asteroid is unlikely, but not negligible and the long-term prediction of the probability of an impact is not a trivial matter. Furthermore, impacts with smaller size objects, between 10 m to 100 m diameter, are expected to occur more frequently and hence are, proportionally, equally dangerous for humans and assets on Earth and in space.
The aim of Stardust-R is to develop enabling technologies and effective solutions to critical and emerging problems in planetary defence, minor body exploration and the sustainable exploitation of space.
The key scientific objectives are: 1) to globally characterise the dynamics of objects around the Earth to define disposal solutions, 2) to correlate spatially and temporally distant events and families of debris to their parent object, 3) to quantify uncertainty in celestial mechanics to accurately predict the probability of impact and collision and quantify the resilience of space systems and environment, 4) to develop tools and methods for space traffic management, 5) to define a criticality index for small asteroids to identify the need for exploration/characterisation, the possibility for exploitation and the method of deflection, 6) to develop a new distribution model for small size asteroids(<100m), 7) to develop systems and algorithms to explore and land on minor bodies with small spacecraft.
Conclusions of the Action
By the end of the action and despite COVID, Stardust-R achieved most of the planned objectives and developed essential tools and capabilities to support the sustainable use of space, manage the space environment, and explore minor bodies in view of future planetary defence missions but also in view of a future sustainable exploitation of their resources.
