Abstract
A Coulomb force attractor is studied for orbital deflection of potentially hazardous asteroids. The concept of a Coulomb force attractor is based on towing an asteroid by utilizing the mutual gravitational force and Coulomb force, induced by artificial charging, between a spacecraft and the asteroid. Particular attention is placed on evaluating the resulting change in the asteroid orbit. The electric potential distribution around the spacecraft is studied, and an analytic expression of the mutual Coulomb force is derived. The equations of motion are derived for a rotating reference frame, and the performance of the Coulomb force attractor is investigated through numerical simulation. The differences between a Coulomb force attractor and a traditional gravity tractor are also examined, and the concept of asteroid towing using several spacecraft is proposed.
