Establish the engineering feasibility of kinetic penetrator characterization

Establish whether a kinetic penetrator for asteroid-regolith characterization can yield a simpler or lighter flight system than quasi-static probing through mission-specific engineering studies.

Background

The paper proposes using a kinetic penetrator’s early axial velocity or acceleration response to constrain the Young’s modulus of asteroid-regolith particles. Because the penetrator acquires its energy before impact, the approach may reduce the need for equipment that sustains large reaction forces against a microgravity surface. However, the paper does not determine whether this benefit translates into a simpler or lighter flight system; that question depends on mission-specific structural, instrumentation, launch, and operational requirements.

References

Whether this yields a simpler or lighter flight system remains to be established through mission-specific engineering studies.

— Constraining Particle Stiffness in Asteroid Regolith from Early-Time High-Speed Penetrator Dynamics under Local Granular Variability  (2610.01470 - Wang et al., 1 Oct 2026) in Section 4.1, “In-situ inference of Young’s modulus”