MOSCOW. Jan 30 (Interfax-AVN) - The RS-20 Voyevoda intercontinental ballistic missile, which is due to be decommissioned, could become the core of a system for defending the planet from asteroids, according to the head of the non-profit Planetary Defense Center, Anatoly Zaitsev.
At the Korolyov Academic Readings, Zaitsev called for creating a comprehensive system of planetary defense against asteroids on the basis of existing technologies. The system could incorporate the ICBM RS-20 as a launch vehicle and space vehicles based on existing engineering solutions, he said.
"The Dnepr launch vehicle is the most rapid way to launch satellites. It is a civilian modification of the world's most powerful silo-based intercontinental ballistic missile, the Voyevoda," Zaitsev said.
Many asteroids fly past the Earth, he said. NASA reported that there were about 143 asteroids moving within the Earth's gravity field, which is about 1 million kilometers, in 2016. Fifty-two of them zipped past the Earth at a distance shorter than the distance to the moon (384,000 kilometers).
"This means that our planet is constantly endangered by asteroids, and some of them might collide with Earth one day," Zaitsev said.
The asteroids ranged in size from 2 to 90 meters, but some, such as the 600-meter asteroid Halloween seen in 2015, were bigger. If that asteroid had collided with the planet, it would have released 50,000 megatons of energy and would have had a kill zone of 500,000 square kilometers and an 800-kilometer diameter. There would also have been secondary consequences, such as gas emissions from the meteorite crater, dust storms, tsunamis, and technogenic catastrophes across the globe.
A team of specialists has proposed the Citadel planetary defense system to prevent such events.
The first stage of the project is called Space Patrol: the launch of relatively cheap micro-satellites to study asteroids approaching Earth and the elaboration of ways to explore and intercept them and either adjust their flight trajectories or destroy them with nuclear charges.
The satellites could be equipped with high-resolution cameras, laser range finders, a Russian-made gradient sensor, or other devices that have been used in outer space before.
The scientists have also proposed using the Soyuz-2 rocket.
Two scout satellites and several interceptor satellites could be protecting the Earth from asteroids and, partially, from comets within five to seven years, according to scientists.