nasa dart mission launches into asteroid

“DART is one aspect of NASA’s work to prepare Earth should we ever be faced with an asteroid hazard.”

“Our goal is to find any possible impact, years to decades in advance, so it can be deflected with a capability like DART that is possible with the technology we currently have.”

Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer at NASA Headquarters. “We have not yet found any significant asteroid impact threat to Earth, but we continue to search for that sizable population we know is still to be found,” said Dr. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory / Steve Gribben. This illustration shows NASA’s DART spacecraft and ASI’s LICIACube spacecraft prior to impact at the binary asteroid system Didymos. Since Dimorphos orbits Didymos at much a slower relative speed than the pair orbits the Sun, the result of DART’s kinetic impact within the binary system can be measured much more easily than a change in the orbit of a single asteroid around the Sun. “In addition to all the ways NASA studies our Universe and our home planet, we’re also working to protect that home, and this test will help prove out one viable way to protect our planet from a hazardous asteroid should one ever be discovered that is headed toward Earth.”ĭART’s target is the binary, near-Earth asteroid system Didymos, composed of the roughly 780-m- (2,560-foot) diameter Didymos and the smaller, approximately 160-m- (530-foot) size moonlet Dimorphos, which orbits Didymos.ĭART will impact Dimorphos to change its orbit within the binary system. “DART is turning science fiction into science fact and is a testament to NASA’s proactivity and innovation for the benefit of all,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. This method will have DART deliberately collide with a target asteroid - which poses no threat to Earth - in order to slightly change its speed and path. DART will continue to travel just outside of Earth’s orbit around the Sun for the next 10 months until its target - the binary asteroid system Didymos - will be a relatively close 6.8 million miles (11 million km) from Earth.ĭART is the first-ever mission dedicated to investigating and demonstrating one method of asteroid deflection by changing an asteroid’s motion in space through kinetic impact. DART’s single instrument, the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO), will turn on a week from now and provide first images from the spacecraft. About two hours later, the spacecraft completed the successful unfurling of its two, 8.5-m- (28-foot) long, roll-out solar arrays. Minutes later, mission operators received the first spacecraft telemetry data and started the process of orienting the spacecraft to a safe position for deploying its solar arrays. EST, DART separated from the second stage of the rocket. EST on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, the United States. NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission launched Novemat 1:21 a.m.

Nasa dart mission launches into asteroid