NASA crashes DART spacecraft today into an asteroid for planetary defense test

DART by NASA is set to crash onto an asteroid

 

At 7:14 p.m. ET today, NASA will intentionally crash its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) into a tiny asteroid named Dimorphos for its first-ever test of planetary defense. NASA writes that if this test becomes successful, the same technique could be used to protect the Earth from a threatening asteroid impact in the future, should one ever be discovered or happened. The space agency’s attempt sets a foolproof protection mechanism for people living on Earth. According to NASA, ‘while the asteroid poses no threat to Earth, this is the world’s first test of the kinetic impact technique, using a spacecraft to deflect an asteroid for planetary defense.’

image courtesy of NASA, Johns Hopkins APL, & Steve Gribben

 

 

Photographing the impact for scientific research

 

A day before the crash, NASA released images of DART’s companion. The spacecraft’s own ‘mini-photographer’ called LICIACube (short for Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging Asteroids) captured images of a crescent Earth and the Pleiades star cluster on September 21st and 22nd respectively as part of preparing DART for documenting its landing. LICIACube (pronounced LEE-cha-cube), which the Italian Space Agency (ASI) contributed, has two optical cameras: LUKE (LICIACube Unit Key Explorer) and LEIA (LICIACube Explorer Imaging for Asteroid).

 

As NASA writes, each camera will collect scientific data to inform the microsatellite’s autonomous system by finding and tracking the target asteroid Dimorphos throughout DART’s encounter. Parts of the camera’s overall goal of the landing include confirming the spacecraft’s impact, observing the evolution of the ejected plume, and potentially capturing images of the newly formed impact crater, and the opposite hemisphere of Dimorphos that DART will never see. 

image of the light from asteroid Didymos | image courtesy of NASA JPL DART Navigation Team

 

 

DART will have to rely on itself for the landing

 

The DART team of NASA has already moved forward with several navigation simulations to prepare its spacecraft for the impact and landing using Non-DRACO (or Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical Navigation) images, but the team shares that it will be the capacities of DART that will be relied on in seeing and processing images of the asteroid Dimorphos and another asteroid Didymos. These images will guide the spacecraft toward the asteroid especially in the final hours before the impact. When the time reaches this point, DART will have to rely on itself to navigate the impact with Dimorphos without the space agency’s team intervening.

image of the Earth acquired by LICIACube’s LEIA camera | image courtesy of NASA & ASI

image of the Pleiades star cluster acquired by LICIACube’s LUKE | image courtesy of NASA & ASI