Statistical Significance of Mission Parameters on the Deflection Efficiency of Kinetic Impacts: Applications for the Next-generation Kinetic Impactor

Abstract

Understanding how to deflect an incoming asteroid is of great importance and a focus of research undertaken internationally by the planetary defense community. Deflection of an asteroid by a kinetic impactor is one such mitigation method that has a high degree of technological maturity. In 2022, NASA’s planetary defense mission, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), will provide the first full-scale technology demonstration of a kinetic impactor. However, the DART mission is just a single test of one kinetic impactor design, prompting the question: Is it possible to optimize the design of a kinetic impactor to make it the most efficient deflector that it can be? In this paper, we use high-fidelity hydrodynamic simulations to examine the effect of five mission parameters (impactor mass, impact velocity, impactor composition, impactor geometry, and target strength) on three observables related to deflection efficiency (crater morphology, ejecta distribution, and momentum transfer) resulting from kinetic impacts. We find that the most significant mission parameters for determining postimpact factors are the impact velocity, impactor mass, and target strength. The impactor geometry and impactor composition emerge as statistically nonsignificant. Overall, we find that the ogive impactor geometry results in the highest variance in predicting the momentum enhancement factor (β), and that generally, impactors with smaller volumes and flat leading edges (plates and rings) produce smaller craters and less ejecta mass compared to impactors with larger volumes and sharper leading edges (spheres, ogives, and cones).