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Forum:Satellites - Robotic Probes
Topic:[Discuss] Double Asteroid Redirection Test
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SpaceX live video

Robert PearlmanNASA release
Witness World's First Planetary Defense Test

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), the world's first mission to test technology for defending Earth against potential asteroid or comet hazards, will impact its target asteroid — which poses no threat to Earth — at 7:14 p.m. EDT on Monday, Sept. 26.

This test will show a spacecraft can autonomously navigate to a target asteroid and intentionally collide with it to change the asteroid's motion in a way that can be measured using ground-based telescopes. DART will provide important data to help better prepare for an asteroid that might pose an impact hazard to Earth, should one ever be discovered.

Monday, Sept. 26 (DART Impact Day)

  • 6 p.m. – Live coverage of DART's impact with the asteroid Dimorphos will air on NASA TV and the agency's website. The public also can watch live on agency social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

  • 7:14 p.m. – DART's kinetic impact with asteroid Dimorphos.
Robert PearlmanNASA video
NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) has one single instrument onboard – the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical Navigation, aka the DRACO camera. DRACO serves as the spacecraft's eye and will guide DART to its final destination: impact with asteroid Dimorphos.

The stream you're watching is a real-time feed from the DART spacecraft enabled through the DRACO camera sending one image per second to Earth. In the hours before impact, the screen will appear mostly black, with a single point of light. That point is the binary asteroid system Didymos which is made up of a larger asteroid named Didymos and a smaller asteroid that orbits around it called Dimorphos. As the 7:14 p.m. EDT (23:14 UTC) impact of asteroid Dimorphos nears closer, the point of light will get bigger and eventually detailed asteroids will be visible.

At 7:14 p.m., the DART spacecraft is slated to intentionally crash into asteroid Dimorphos. This stream will be delayed due to the time it takes the images to arrive at Earth, plus additional time for feeding the images to various platforms.

After impact, the feed will turn black – due to a loss of signal. After about 2 minutes, this stream will turn into a replay – showing the final moments leading up to impact. That replay file will also become available on NASA websites and social media accounts.

Blackarrow
NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), the world's first mission to test technology for defending Earth against potential asteroid or comet hazards, will impact its target asteroid...
It may be the first mission intended to deflect its target, but let's not forget that in 2005, NASA struck Comet Tempel-1 with an 820 lb impactor travelling at a relative impact velocity of 23,000 mph. The Deep Impact collision had the force of 4.7 tons of TNT and made a crater 490 feet in diameter.

Changing the orbit/trajectory of Tempel-1 may not have been part of the mission, but I assume that such an impact must necessarily have changed the comet's trajectory to some extent, even if that change could not be detected from Earth. (If a change in trajectory was ever seen, details would be appreciated!)

Robert PearlmanI am not aware (and after a quick search could not find) mention of any measurements being taken or determined with regards to Tempel-1's change in trajectory, but then that wasn't the purpose of the Deep Impact mission.

One of the key components of the DART mission is that is targeting a binary asteroid system for which the orbital period can be precisely measured by Earth-based telescopes. It is because of that characteristic that NASA will be able to determine the extent to which DART was capable of changing Dimorphos' motion.

HeadshotThe changes brought about by the Deep Impact collision with Tempel I were calculatable, but not measurable. According to the June 2005 issue of Sky and Telescope, the impact changed the comet's velocity by 0.0001 millimeters per second. It decreased Tempel I's perihelion distance by 10 meters and its orbital period by less than one second.
SpaceCadet1983WE DID IT! Very emotional moment up to and including impact. Probably the most exciting space mission I've seen since the Apollo moon landings!
BlackarrowBULLSEYE! Well done, NASA!
quote:
Originally posted by Headshot:
...the impact changed the comet's velocity by 0.0001 millimeters per second.
As Robert points out, it was not part of the Deep Impact plan to change the orbit of Tempel-1, but thank you for showing that some tiny changes were likely made. That gives me added confidence that larger and significant changes to the orbit of Dimorphos have just been made by the DART impact. The actual results should be fascinating.
Dave_JohnsonTwitter post from the ATLAS project showing the impact as seen from Earth.
olyThat was cool.
GilbertSimply awesome!
BlackarrowAfter the incredible quality of the DART impact images, I can't help feeling that we have been let down by the quality of the LICIACube impact images. They have all the sharpness of a 1960s Tiros weather-satellite.

I trust they will undergo extensive computer-enhancement, but I can't help wondering why an off-the-shelf digital camera on Juno can send back sharp and amazing pictures of Jupiter, while the LICIA camera, transmitting from 11 million miles away, produces fuzzy images with a very noisy background.

Robert PearlmanJunoCam is photographing a much (much, much) larger body from orbit after being targeted by controllers on Earth, whereas the cameras on LICIACube had to autonomously target a very small asteroid from a safe distance away (about 35 miles or 55 kilometers).
HeadshotConsidering the amount of debris from the collision of DART with Dimorphos seen by Earth based telescopes, I was very relieved that the LICIA cubesat was not destroyed or damaged by the ejecta.
BlackarrowWhile noting the points made by Robert and Headshot, I remain underwhelmed by the LICIA Cube image quality. The space background in the images is inherently "noisy" and Didymos looks more like a mushroom than an asteroid. I realise that's probably in order to capture the fainter Dimorphos and the post-impact debris, but I really hope computer enhancement can clean up the images.

By the way, since I previously mentioned JunoCam, it's worth taking a look at how a cheap off-the-shelf digital camera has just taken stunningly sharp images of Europa.

Robert PearlmanNASA will host a briefing at 2 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, Oct. 11, to provide an update on the DART mission. The briefing will air on NASA TV.

Participants include:

  • NASA Administrator Bill Nelson
  • Italian Space Agency President Giorgio Saccoccia

    DART update panel:

  • Lori Glaze, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington
  • Tom Statler, DART program scientist at NASA Headquarters
  • Nancy Chabot, DART coordination lead at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland
Robert PearlmanThe DART team has confirmed that the spacecraft's impact altered Dimorphos orbit around Didymos by 32 minutes. DART shortened its 11 hour and 55 minute orbit to 11 hours and 23 minutes.

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