Armageddon with a twist: Airbus to reveal new asteroid deflection concept

Details of a unique way of protecting Earth from an asteroid impact will be unveiled by Airbus at the bi-annual Planetary Defence Conference in Tokyo this week. ​

Experts from the aerospace company will introduce ‘NEOTWIST,’ a new concept which is designed to help scientists learn more about what kind of impacts can best deflect asteroids away from their orbits.

Currently, proposed missions for deflecting an asteroid require two spacecraft – one to knock the space rock off course, and a second to follow it after impact and measure the small shift in its orbit.

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The idea proposed by Airbus takes a completely different approach. Their test mission would seek to hit an asteroid off-centre, thereby changing its orbit by changing the rate at which it spins. A change in spin is easier to detect from Earth-bound telescopes, so this would provide a much cheaper way of determining whether an asteroid-deflection mission had been successful.

NEOTWIST (which is an abbreviation for Near Earth Object Transfer of angular momentum Spin Test) could also include a small observation module which would detach from the main spacecraft just before it hits the asteroid, to measure to change in rotation.  

The idea behind NEOTWIST is to arm scientists with the tools and information to test theories about asteroid deflection which can’t be examined on earth. “A deflection test mission, perhaps in a joint effort by several space agencies, is needed to develop technologies to enable us to deal with an asteroid threat,” said Albert Falke, who heads Airbus’s asteroid deflection programme.

"The NEOTWIST concept combines an impactor and an in situ monitoring module in a single spacecraft, said Ulrich Johann, Head of Future Programmes at Airbus’s Science and Earth Observation department. “This cost-effective approach providing on the spot observation capabilities should lead to more launch opportunities for NEOTWIST compared to other concepts.”

The NEOTWIST scenario is part of NEOShield-2, a collaborative project aimed at developing the technology to divert dangerous asteroid. It is part of the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme and brings together partners from 11 European countries including Germany, France and the UK.