Launched on November 24, 2021, the Dart mission (acronym for dart, in English) is about to hit its target a year later. It is a module, launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, which will crash voluntarily on the night of September 26 to 27 at a speed of 24,000 km/h. Its destiny: to crash into the asteroid Dimorphos, a small moon that orbits around Didymos, a much larger asteroid that travels 11 million kilometers from Earth.
This mission a bit special – and scary? — is not responding to a real emergency and NASA is not trying to save the world. The idea is rather to prepare for it. The method that will be tested by NASA is that of kinetic impact, that is to say, moving the asteroid away from its initial trajectory thanks to this crash and measuring the deviation produced. Again, no risk is taken since the strike on the small moon of 160 meters in diameter will only disturb its trajectory around Didymos.
In reality, the impact of this 600 kilogram vessel should cause, at least, a 73-second change in the pebble’s orbit duration. Currently, it completes its revolution around Didymos in 11.92 hours. The objective is also to see how Dimorphos will react to the shock since the specialists do not yet know its composition and in particular its porosity.
Images from the module’s reconnaissance camera will be transmitted live by NASA up to three seconds before impact. The event can be followed live on the video channel of the American agency, of which we give you the link below. Finally, it is not entirely excluded that Dart misses its target, which would open a new window for him in two years.