ESA Plans Test of Asteroid Defense System

vinlud writes "It has been announced by Dutch television ESA has chosen the Don Quijote programme to investigate the possibilities of altering the collision course of asteroids heading for Earth. The program, selected among five other studies, contains two spacecraft: Hidalgo and Sancho. Hidalgo will impact an asteroid of approximately 500 m diameter at a relative speed of at least 10 km/s while Sancho will retreat to a safe distance to observe the impact. An animation of the mission sequence (6.49 Mb) can be downloaded from here."

Comments

That's NOT important

[superpulpsicle]

What's important is a very efficient backup of slashdot so I can still post in the case of a continent size meteor hitting earth.

Low expectations?

[October_30th]

Do they have low expectations or why is the project named after a fictional character who was rather bonkers and fought windmills?

"The full original title was El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha. The adjective "quixotic," meaning "idealistic and impractical," derives from his name, and the expression "tilting at windmills" comes from his story."

Re:Low expectations?

[joeykiller]

Well, Don Quijote believed he were fighting knights, while he actually was fighting windmillds.

Most people would say that it would be impossible if not futile to attack windmills and believe you could win over them. But Don Quijote never doubted his abilites, no matter what Sancho Panza thought.

Maybe this is what ESA has thought about when they named their mission: Keep hope up, no matter how impossible the task seems.

Hidalgo's ultimate goal...

[sdo1]

Hidalgo will impact an asteroid of approximately 500 m diameter at a relative speed of at least 10 km/s...

... altering its trajectory into a orbit scheduled to collide with Earth in 2006 at which point the real test will begin.

-S

Testing the Asteroid Defense system for yourself.

[Anonymous Coward]

Try it out here.

It's All in the name

[Count of Montecristo]

While there will be incessant puns about the characters that this project is named after; given the fact that in the book, Don Quixote was out of his mind, I feel it is very appropriate, since it describes excactly what it does.

Perhaps the most famous part of this book is when Don Quixote gallantly charged at windmills, while Sancho watched. In his troubled mind, The windmills were evil Giants, which he sought to destroy to win the favors of his sweethart Dulcinea, wich is a very accurate depiction of what the program is supposed to do.

I find that the depiction, regardless of the obvious fact that in the book it was a hopeless cause; is a romantic metaphore, rather than an endorsement of failure, poor engineering or idealistic but unreachable goals.

As a side note, this book (El ingenioso Hidalgo, Don Quixote de la Mancha) is to the Spanish Language as The Count of Montecristo is to French, Luther's New testament translation is to German, and the works of Shakespeare are to English.

Missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see that most slashdotters are trolling on the actual mission of the spaceships. Their purpose is to impact the asteroid to determine its composition, structure, ect. to then, determine an appropiate course of action.

And the names do fit. They fit because Don Quijote tried to bring back the idealized lifestyle of chivalry. His desire was to protect the good cause and perhaps slay a dragon or two in the way. He was mocked by people because they believed such perils were nonexistent. Just like we mock this far fetched perhaps, but still necesary project that aims to be our first line of defense in case of a possible, if not improbable event.

I fail to see how people can criticize this and yet run SETI at home on their computers.

Godspeed Don Quijote, and Sancho Pansa, I for once, am gratefull of your so much needed lunacy.

Number Crunching

[Rob Carr]

Assuming that the Hildalgo probe masses in at 25 kg (the same as Sancho - it might be less) and is moving at 10km/sec and assuming the asteroid has a density of 3g/cc (giving a mass of 4x10^10 kg, and if the probe is absorbed into the asteroid and no material is lost from the asteroid, then the change of velocity for the asteroid will be about 6x10^-9 km/sec.

For comparison, the asteroid probably has a velocity somewhere on the order of 5-10km/sec.

If the asteroid and probe hit head on with both having a velocity (relative to the sun) of 10km/sec, then you can double the change to 1.2x10^-8 km/sec

It's probably a good idea to check my work. Here's how I did the calculation:

Let m1 be the probe and m2 be the asteroid.

v(center of mass)=(m1*v1+m2*v2)/(m1+m2). v2=0 for this reference frame and m1+m2 essentially equals m2. Since we're in the reference frame of the asteroid being stationary, the combination of probe and asteroid will still have the same velocity for the center of mass.

I hope I didn't botch this estimate....