☄️ Asteroid Deflection — Kinetic Impactor

An Earth-crossing asteroid is on a collision course. Fire a kinetic impactor spacecraft to apply a small Δv and shift its orbit enough to miss. Inspired by NASA's DART mission.

Impactor Parameters

Δv Magnitude 10 cm/s Direction Fire timing (year) 0.00 yr

Impact Risk

⚠ IMPACT TRAJECTORY

Miss distance—

Min approach—

Encounter date—

Δv applied—

Orbital Elements

Semi-major axis—

Eccentricity—

Period—

Δa (change)—

Δe (change)—

N-body integration:
RK4 · G·M_☉ = 4π² AU³/yr²
Collision threshold: 0.01 AU (~1.5 million km)

How Kinetic Impactors Work

A kinetic impactor spacecraft collides with an asteroid at high speed, transferring momentum and changing its velocity by a tiny Δv (centimetres per second). Because the impact happens years before a predicted Earth encounter, even a tiny velocity change accumulates into a large position shift by the time of the encounter — this is called the keyhole effect. The simulation uses RK4 integration in AU/year units (G·M_☉ = 4π²) to propagate both Earth (circular 1 AU orbit) and an Earth-crossing asteroid (a ≈ 1.28 AU, e ≈ 0.35) forward in time. Clicking "Fire Impactor" instantly adds Δv to the asteroid's velocity vector at a chosen time. The yellow dotted trace shows the original orbit; the green/red trace shows the new one. NASA's DART mission achieved ~3.65 mm/s Δv on asteroid Dimorphos in 2022.