Propellantless Space Exploration Using Asteroids

On January 11, 2007 the Chinese military successfully demonstrated the technology to physically hit a 2 meter sized spacecraft at a closing speed of 8.0 km/s. It is postulated this "hit-to-kill" technology can serve as the basis for a "hit-to-deliver" space transportation system. A key innovation is to convert the kinetic energy (KE) of an arriving spacecraft into electricity via regenerative braking, liberating hundreds of MW of electrical power while simultaneously stopping the relative motion of an arriving spacecraft with accelerations below 10 m/s². A space transportation architecture exploiting these KE converter stations (named Impulse Engines) is presented, with results that compare favorably with conventional rocket travel. If further developed, a promising method of converting asteroidal bodies into Impulse Engines can potentially open vast regions of the solar system to exploration activities.