Design of an Electrically-Propelled Asteroid Rendezvous Probe Launched as a Secondary Payload

This paper summarises a design study undertaken as a final year project for the author’s B.Eng in Aerospace Systems Engineering. A spacecraft design is outlined for a vehicle to perform a rendezvous with a near earth asteroid after being launched as a secondary payload into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit. The 380 kg (dry) spacecraft would use a bipropellant chemical propulsion system to manoeuvre in, and escape from Earth orbit. Interplanetary maneuvering would be accomplished with an ion propulsion system.