06 July 2009

Space Generation Move an Asteroid Competition

http://www.spacegeneration.org/asteroid

The goal of this competition is to develop innovative and credible planetary defense solutions. The responses should meet the following requirements:

1. Describe in technical detail a concept to move an asteroid or comet that is at least 140 meters in diameter. The contestants should make their own reasonable assumptions on asteroid composition, density, and orbit. The goal is to not constrain the authors of the technical paper with a specific target asteroid or comet. It is suggested that the authors apply their concept on reasonable asteroid/comet examples.

2. This competition is intentionally broad. Concepts can be very widely applicable to a large variety of asteroid/comets or targeted for a specific asteroid/comet. Contestants should attempt to understand the overall challenge of asteroid/comet mitigation. Contestants may want to address how to confirm the effect of their mitigation approach on the asteroid/comet.

3. Contestants may want to address the effects of potential keyholes and the possibility of resonant return impacts (i.e. deflecting into a keyhole). In this scenario, one can deflect an asteroid/comet from a direct Earth impact but its resultant new orbit may not be well known and may include several keyhole passage possibilities, thereby resulting in a new potential Earth impact in the future.

4. Papers should show originality, engineering practicality, familiarity with the technical literature, and provide a clear written description of the innovation.

5. The papers should conform to the rules for submission to the International Astronautical Congress (IAC). Please see the section entitled "Paper Submission Details" below for actual formatting instructions for papers for this competition.

6. The final submissions are due as PDF documents (under 5 MB) and should be emailed to asteroid@spacegeneration.org. All submissions must be made by 26 July 2009 by 20:00 UTC. All submission emails should have a point of contact (POC) identified in the email with name, affiliation, address, email, and phone number. This point of contact should be the main author of the paper. Any submissions after the due date will not be considered. Award winner will be announced on 26 August 2009 (tentative).

7. There can be up to a maximum of three (3) people per entry. One of the three has to be identified as the main author and main point of contact. All team members must be under thirty-three (33) years of age by 01 September 2009. No one of any team can be listed as a team member for any other team.

SCHEDULE

First Entries Accepted: 30 April 2009

Submission Deadline: 26 July 2009 (20:00 UTC)

Winners Announced: 26 August 2009

Space Generation Congress (SGC): 8 - 10 Oct 2009, Daejeon, Korea

International Astronautical Congress (IAC) 12 - 16 Oct 2009, Daejeon, Korea

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND JUDGING

The SGAC is holding the competition. Financial support has been provided by the sponsors. The competition Advisory Committee includes:

- A.C. Charania, SpaceWorks Commercial, President

- Alex Karl, Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC), Projects Coordinator

- Louis Friedman, The Planetary Society, Executive Director

A judging panel put together by the SGAC shall make recommendations on winner(s) and awards. Proposals will be judged upon the following (approximate initial weights shown in parentheses): technical content and detail (40%); originality (40%), and description of concept (20%). Based upon recommendations of the judging panel, final decisions will be made by an administrative committee from the SGAC.

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