The COMPASS team attended the 7th IAA Planetary Defense Conference from 26th to 30th April 2021, held virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic (PDC2021). This event was hosted by UNOOSA in collaboration with ESA.
Renato Cirelli, Juan Luis Gonzalo Gómez and Camilla Colombo presented the work done on the gravitational-magnetic tug. The simultaneous use of gravitational and magnetic mutual interactions between an asteroid, with natural global magnetisation state, and a spacecraft, equipped with an onboard magnetic field generator subsystem, is proposed and investigated with the goal of improving the achieved deflection at the closest approach with Earth. If you are interested, have a look at the presented e-poster within the deflection and disruption testing panel.
Want to dive into PDC2021’s topics? The entire conference is publicly available at 2021 IAA PDC‘s main site and at UNOOSA’s dedicated page.