NASA launches first of its kind DART Mission – All you need to know

What is NASA’s DART Mission?

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission directed by NASA is the first demonstration of the kinetic impactor technique to change the motion of an asteroid in space. The target of the DART Mission is the binary near-Earth asteroid (65803) Didymos and its moonlet.

The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) has been built and developed the DART Mission’s spacecraft. The DART Mission is $330 million worth.

Launch Date

The DART spacecraft was launched on November 24, 2021. After a year since the launch, the spacecraft is expected to cross the Didymos moonlet in around late September 2022 during which the Didymos asteroid system will be within 11 million kms of Earth.

Instruments and Systems

The DART spacecraft will have an onboard camera called Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for OpNav (DRACO). It will use Roll-Out Solar Arrays (ROSA) to supply solar power for its electric propulsion system after launch. The spacecraft will be equipped with advanced autonomous navigation algorithms. The spacecraft will also test the Evolutionary Xenon Thruster – Commercial (NEXT-C) solar electric propulsion system by NASA.

NASA’s DART Mission will crash itself into an asteroid

The DART Mission’s spacecraft will use the onboard camera called Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for OpNav (DRACO) and advanced autonomous navigation algorithms during the crash.

The spacecraft will attain the kinetic impact deflection by deliberately crashing into the moonlet of the Didymos asteroid at a speed of roughly 6.6 km per second (24,140 km per hour)

How will NASA's DART Mission crash benefit?

The kinetic impact caused by the collision will aid to modify the speed of the moonlet in its orbit around the parent asteroid Didymos by a fraction of a per cent and alter the orbital period of the moonlet by several minutes. This alteration of the orbital period will be viewed and recorded by telescopes on Earth.