Goal in sight! After almost a year of flying to accelerate and aim for the right trajectory, DART prepares to collide with Dimorphos, the small moon of theDidymos asteroid. A demonstration which arrives in its most critical period, before the impact on September 26th.
There will be damage!
Asteroid in sight for DART
This is the ultimate demonstration of the simplest method to try to deflect an asteroid that would be dangerous for our planet: send a guided projectile at very high speed. DART (610 kg at takeoff) is now traveling with a speed difference of 6.6 km per second compared to the asteroid Didymos and its small moon Dimorphos… on which it will crash on September 26.
The teams are aiming for the smaller member of this duo, as the impact will not change the orbit of the parent asteroid Didymos, but the speed and therefore the trajectory of Dimorphos. And recently, teams can find the asteroid on DART’s optical navigation camera, named DRACO (Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation), despite the 20 million kilometers that still separate them.
The final approach is coming
NASA’s mission is progressing with few changes in trajectory so far, but that it can identify its target on its own camera is already good news. Indeed, in the last days and more particularly in the last hour of its mission, it will have to be able to maneuver alone to recalculate and if necessary optimize its point of impact on the small moon Dimorphos.
And everything will go so fast that it will be impossible to go through commands from Earth. ” By getting images of the asteroid with DRACO right now, we can already adjust the software settings explains Elena Adams, mission engineering manager.
You won’t have to miss it
August 12, August 13, August 22, DART picked up Didymos several times, and soon these measurements will take place daily, then every five hours. The last major course adjustments are expected the day before impact, September 25.
The impact and above all its effects will be measured via a small CubeSat which travels with DART, called LICIACube, but also by the ground telescopes, which will in particular follow the variations of the orbit of Dimorphos around Didymos… Before the Hera mission from ESA will visit the asteroid duo in the years to come.
NASA hopes for conclusive results in case it is necessary to deflect (even minimally) an asteroid heading for an Earth collision in the coming decade. For the moment, none meet this criterion.
Source : NASA
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