Contest Challenge Overview

Over the last 30 years, Near Earth Objects (NEOs) have garnered special interest as the awareness of the potential dangers posed by them to Earth, has increased. A NEO is defined as a a Solar System object (typically asteroids and comets) in an orbit which allows them to enter Earth's neighbourhood with a perihelion distance of less than 1 Astronomical Unit (AU). More specifically, a Potentially Hazardous Object (PHO) is an object greater than 140 meters and passes within 0.05 AU of Earth's orbit. Scientists agree that throughout Earth’s history, collisions with NEOs have significantly shaped the geological and biological structure of the planet. Consequently NASA, ESA and other scientific bodies are scanning the night sky, in an effort called Spaceguard, to find potentially dangerous NEOs and are researching in collision mitigation techniques to defend our planet.

Imagine that it is Year 2065 and the world's Spaceguard efforts has found a potentially hazardous asteroid, Kheper, 260m in size, with a 1 in 3000 chance of colliding with the Earth in 2088. The world governments are looking for a feasible collision mitigation strategy. International coordination has voted that the strategy must use non-explosive (nuclear, traditional explosive, etc.) means to carry out the mission. The most promising proposal will have the backing and funding of the world governments. In addition to designing a mitigation strategy, a contingency plan must also be developed in case the strategy is unsuccessful. The winner will be chosen from a pool of candidate teams who decide to respond to this Request for Proposal.