Dynamic Compression Modelling for Planetary Defence

To support the planetary defense mission, we must be able to predict the results of a kinetic impact on a variety of near-earth objects. In 2021, the DART mission launched a kinetic impactor into the rubble-pile asteroid Dimorphos. (Daly et al., 2023) This mission serves as an experimental benchmark for current impact modelling. Impact models can provide estimates of an asteroid's total momentum change, β, after being struck by a kinetic impactor. Numerous simulations of impacts into asteroids like Dimorphos have found the total change in momenta is highly sensitive to the initial porosity of the target asteroid. However, the most widely used compaction model, P-a, requires fine-tuned, numerically fitted parameters to estimate the compaction response. This project seeks to determine sensitivity to the compaction model used in simulations and suggest the appropriate functional form for the compaction model itself. This work will also inform future experiments needed to determine accurate parameterization for impact simulations of rubble-pile asteroids.