Normally, NASA likes its probes to come into contact with other objects in space in a very controlled way. You want land a rover on Mars, no throw a rover on Mars, for example. He Dual Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) it is different. This time, NASA is going to step on the ion pedal and just hit the damn thing with its spaceship, because you fuck, asteroid. In addition, they will learn many things about how to potentially deflect dangerous asteroids from becoming meteors hitting Earth. But mostly because they don’t like how that asteroid looks at them.
You know that the DART project is exciting because it is in the Planetary defense section of the NASA website, which looks like a part of a movie about lasers and at least one astronaut falling into space.
The DART spacecraft is an ion-powered box kinetic impactor with interesting folding solar panels and has this look:
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The ion engine is especially interesting, as it is a first application of a propulsion system likely to be used in future spacecraft:
“The DART spacecraft will demonstrate the NASA Evolutionary Xenon Propeller: Commercial (NEXT-C)solar electric propulsion system as part of its propulsion into space. NEXT-C is a next-generation system based on the Dawn spacecraft propulsion system, and was developed at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. By using electric propulsion, DART could benefit from significant flexibility in the mission’s timeline while demonstrating the next generation of ion engine technology, with applications for future NASA missions.
The target asteroid is an interesting choice, because it really is two asteroids. The asteroid is called Didymos and is a binary asteroid, because it has its own small “moon”, a smaller asteroid orbiting Didymos. This moon is the target of DART.
Using the solar-powered ion engine and advanced autonomous guidance software, DART will move to the moon, which will change the speed of the moon’s orbit around Didymos, a change that can be studied with telescopes at the earth.
Studying the change in the orbital path can help us figure out the most effective way to destroy a potentially impactful asteroid on Earth enough to lose our planet, where we not only store our things, but also the location of all Shake Shack known to mankind.
Also, like any good, modern fight, there will be a witness who will do it all on video, in this case a small Cubesat who will be released before the impact and who may or may not upload the images to Star of the world.
In Vice, there is a good interview with astronomer Andy Rivkin, who gives a good explanation of the DART mission and what he hopes to achieve:
So, yes, take this, the asteroid. This little punk moon has until November 24 and February 15, 2022 to meet, as this is the current DART release window.