Project Icarus Systems Engineering

170 Pages·1979·6.54 MB·English

by  MIT Student Project in Systems Engineering

PROJECT ICARUS
Discovery photograph of lcarus

(Reprinted from F. G. Watson, Between the Planets (1956), plate 2, permission of the Harvard University Press)
PROJECT ICARUS

MIT Student Project in Systems Engineering

The M IT Press

Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England
Copyright © 1968 by

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Second printing, 1 97 9

This book is set in IBM Univers Type

by A & B Typesetters, Inc., Concord, N.H.,

printed and bound by Halliday Lithograph Corporation

in the United States of America

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any

form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, re­

cording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission

in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Main entry under title:

Project Icarus.

Includes bibliographies.

1. Astronautics-Systems engineering. 2. Space vehicles. 3. Hydrogen bomb.

4. Planets, Minor-(156611. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

TL870.P76 1979

62 9.43

ISBN 0-262-63068-0 (paper)

78-31763
Contents

Foreword

vii

1

Icarus

2

The Mission Plan

12

3

Nuclear Detonation and Interaction

2 4
4

Launch Systems

43

5

The I carus Spacecraft

52

6

Guidance and Control

70

7

Communications

95

8

Intercept Monitoring Satellite

108

9

Management a'ld Economic Impact

138

10

Mission Evaluation

1 47

Credits

153

Project History

155
Foreword

ICARUS-an asteroid about one mile in diameter-one of

many such rocks whizzing through space, remnants of some

ancient upheaval-weaving a path around the sun that brings

it near earth every nineteen years. Just a boulder a mile

across; yet if it were to strike earth, the result would be a

cataclysm of unimaginable proportions, unleashing an ex­

plosive power equal to half a trillion tons of TNT. If Icarus

plunged into the ocean, say 1000 miles east of Bermuda,

the resulting tidal wave would wash away the resort islands,

swamp most of Florida, and lash Boston-1500 miles away­

with a 200-foot wall of water.

Imagine 4400 megatons of destruction hurtling towards

earth. Orbit, velocity, mass-all these can be calculated. But

how can the asteroid be stopped? By what complex con­

figuration of aeronautic systems can an explosion five times

as powerful as Krakatoa be averted?

This is the task set a carefully chosen team of MIT

engineers: Stop Icarus. As the days tick past and impact

approaches, plans are drawn, discarded, refined. Weapons
Project Icarus

viii

must be devised, guidance and control instruments adapted,

communications systems honed to fail-safe accuracy. The

project will strain the manpower and resources of the en­

tire nation, but there is no alternative.

It didn't happen in 1968; Icarus missed earth by 4 million

miles. But in the scale of the solar system, 4 million miles is

uncomfortably close. And in 1987, how near will Icarus'

eccentric orbit carry it? What are the chances of some other,

as yet undiscovered, asteroid-or worse, a random meteor­

making its way straight for earth? The MIT team's plan may

yet be put to the test.
PROJECT ICARUS
1

Icarus

On June 26, 1949, Walter Baade discovered a faint streak on
a 1-hour star-field exposure (frontispiece) taken with the
48-inch Schmidt camera at Palomar Observatory. This heavenly body, tagged (1566) Icarus (fk' ar as), and sometimes
called Baade's body, is classified as an Apollo asteroid, that
is, an asteroid whose orbit crosses that of the earth. At the
time of its discovery, and again on June 14, 1968, Icarus
passed within 4 million miles of the earth. Within the past
35 years, 3 other Apollo asteroids-Apollo, Adonis, and
Hermes-have missed the earth by 2 million, 1 million, and
0.5 million miles (just twice the distance to the moon),
respectively. The fact that these Apollo asteroids pass relatively close to the earth, in terms of interplanetary distances, has
generated considerable interest in them around the world,
and in some cases even grave concern.
Since the Apollo asteroids are relatively small, typically a
mile in diameter, and since they pass the earth so quickly, at
speeds of perhaps 20 miles per second, they are visible for
at most a few hours at a time, even with the largest of tele