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Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, February 8, 2010 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium
Rescheduled for October 4, 2010

Bong Wie

"Mitigation of Asteroid Impact Threats"

ABSTRACT -- This talk is about mitigating the future impact threats of NEOs (Near-Earth Objects). 65 million years ago, a 10-km asteroid struck near the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico and created the 170-km Chicxulub crater. Since 1990, most scientists believe that a global climate change caused by the 10-km asteroid impact may have caused the dinosaur extinction. Key technical issues associated with the deflection of an NEO which is in a collision course with the Earth are discussed. Although various deflection technologies, including nuclear standoff explosions, kinetic impactors, and slow-pull gravity tractors, have been proposed during the past two decades, there is no consensus on how to reliably deflect them in a timely manner. Consequently, this talk will focus on the practical engineering aspects of such a technically challenging, complex astrodynamical problem.

SPEAKER -- Bong Wie is the Vance D. Coffman Endowed Chair Professor of Aerospace Engineering and the founding Director of the Asteroid Deflection Research Center at Iowa State University. He received his B.S. in aeronautical engineering from Seoul National University, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford University in 1978 and 1981, respectively. In 2006, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) presented Professor Wie with the Mechanics and Control of Flight Award for his innovative research on advanced control of complex spacecraft such as agile imaging satellites, solar sails, and large space structures. He is the author of an AIAA textbook Space Vehicle Dynamics and Control (second edition, 2008). He is an Associate Fellow of AIAA.




Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov