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DART
On September 26th, 2022, a spacecraft intentionally crashed into an asteroid as part of a 325-million-dollar mission known as NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART). According to NASA, over 1 million asteroids orbit our sun, and some even cross paths with Earth’s orbit. To prevent or mitigate an asteroid impact that could lead to humanity’s extinction, NASA launched DART. The main goal of the test was to demonstrate kinetic impactor technology to adjust the speed and path of an asteroid as a planetary defense strategy.
DART is just one part of NASA’s larger planetary defense strategy. The DART mission demonstrates a potential technology for deflecting an asteroid off a predicted impact course with Earth. DART is NASA’s first spacecraft mission developed to play a role in planetary defense; It was launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, on November 23rd, 2021, using a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and has traveled about 7 million miles until it collided with an asteroid roughly the size of the Washington monument. DART’S target was a binary asteroid system comprised of a large asteroid Didymos and its smaller moonlet Dimorphous.
The DART impactor spacecraft is a box with two very large solar arrays on either side, which provide power to the spacecraft’s systems. The primary propulsion system is an ion thruster that is solar-powered, which produces thrust using the electrostatic acceleration of ions (electrically charged atoms). The DART payload consists of a single instrument, the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO). DRACO is a high-resolution imager that supports navigation and targeting to measure the asteroid’s size and shape and determine the impact site. For DART to accurately hit its target on its own, NASA developed algorithms called SMART Nav (Small-body Maneuvering Autonomous Real-Time Navigation). This autonomous navigation system identified and distinguished between the two bodies at Didymos and then directed the spacecraft toward Dimorphos without human input.
