Ion Drive sounds great, and this concept would work, if you could just build the ship right in front of the asteroid.
Otherwise, getting the ship ‘to’ an asteroid, and then getting it ‘parked’ in front of it, might require a bit more than an Ion Drive.
Another challenge would be trying to alter the ‘course’ of an asteroid. Although possible, it would take a really, really, really, long time.
Why don’t they just drive an anchor into the asteroid and attach a rope to it ?
LinkAnother challenge would be trying to alter the ‘course’ of an asteroid. Although possible, it would take a really, really, really, long time.The Dawn spacecraft uses ion propulsion to get the additional velocity needed to reach Vesta once it leaves the Delta rocket. It also uses ion propulsion to spiral to lower altitudes on Vesta, to leave Vesta and cruise to Ceres and to spiral to a low altitude orbit at Ceres. Ion propulsion makes efficient use of the onboard fuel by accelerating it to a velocity ten times that of chemical rockets. This efficiency is measured in terms of the specific impulse of the fuel
Given enough time (probably millions of years) and using ever more massive bodies for slingshot maneuvers, we can move planets.
It might be spinning. You would just have a massive yoyo that winds up the rope and smashes the satellite.
It might be an unstable agglomeration of smaller bits, no good place to put an anchor.
The use of the gravitational link does mean that you can't move small mass asteroids any faster than large ones, which is a problem as you don't generally see them as soon.
Some folks do have interesting work.