AIDA (international space cooperation)

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Illustration of the DART impactor spacecraft and LICIACube approaching Dimorphos. Dart header 2 (1).jpg
Illustration of the DART impactor spacecraft and LICIACube approaching Dimorphos.

DART or Double Asteroid Redirection Test was a 500 kg (1,100 lb) impactor that hosted a single camera, Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical Navigation (DRACO), derived from LORRI camera aboard New Horizons, to support autonomous guiding to impact the center of the moon of Didymos B. [33] It also carried an Italian-built cubesat called LICIACube that was released pre-impact on 11 September 2022 to image the event. [34] It is estimated that the impact of the 500 kg (1,100 lb) [35] DART at 6 km/s (3.7 mi/s) [19] will produce a velocity change on the order of 0.4 mm/s, which leads to a small change in the orbit of Didymos B, but over time, a large change in the orbital position (or orbital phase). [13] [17] [14] DART impacted Dimorphos on 26 September 2022. [8]

Hera

Hera probe and its 2 CubeSats, Milani and Juventas Hera in orbit.jpg
Hera probe and its 2 CubeSats, Milani and Juventas

Hera is the European component of the ESA–NASA AIDA mission. The Hera spacecraft, approved on 29 November 2019, [22] will focus on key measurements to validate impact and asteroid deflection models such as the detailed characterisation of the impact crater made by the DART impactor. [36] Hera will also measure the DART impact outcome, such as change in the binary system orbit, [36] and will enable detailed characterisation of the Dimorphos volume and surface properties, as well as measure the volume and morphology of the DART impact crater. [37]

The baseline payload of Hera includes a camera, a miniaturized lidar and two CubeSats dedicated to asteroid characterisation. The spacecraft design allows for 40 kilograms (88 lb) of additional payload mass, including the Small Carry-on Impactor (SCI) proposed by Japan's space agency JAXA. Other options, such as a small lander, are being considered. [36] Hera will be launched on an Falcon 9 in 2024. [2]

Proposed payload

The notional payloads on Hera are: [14] [10] [4]

  • Asteroid Framing Camera to obtain information on the dynamics of a binary asteroid and physical characteristics. [38]
  • Lidar laser altimeter to measure the shapes of the two bodies and constrain the mass of the asteroid's moon. [38]
  • Thermal imager [38]
  • Milani is a 6-unit CubeSat carrying the ASPECT visual and near-IR imaging spectrometer and VISTA for dust characterization. Milani will study the binary system surface composition and perform technology demonstration experiments related to the Inter-Satellite Link (ISL) and autonomous optical navigation. The CubeSat will operate for 3–6 months in the vicinity of the system. [39]
  • Juventas is a 6-unit CubeSat carrying a camera and a low-frequency radar (JuRa), for determining the internal structure of Dimorphos. [40] [41] It will operate for 3–6 months near the asteroid. [5] At the end of its mission, it will attempt a landing on the surface of Dimorphos to obtain close-up data. [5]
  • An optional impactor may also be carried by Hera. [4] It would be a replica of the Japan's Small Carry-on Impactor (SCI) on board the Hayabusa2 asteroid sample return mission. [10] [4] By performing a secondary impact (the primary impact being DART's), a comparison of the effects posed by two collisions of different nature on the same asteroid can be realized, helping validate numerical impact algorithms and scaling laws. [4]

Mission design

AIDA
Mission typeDual asteroid probes
Operator ESA / NASA
Website AIDA study
Start of mission
Launch date
Rocket
Dimorphos [3] impactor
Spacecraft component DART
Impact date26 September 2022
Schematic showing the progress of the mission. In the current proposal AIM is replaced with Hera, there is no MASCOT, and the CubeSats are now envisioned to be 6U instead of 3U Schematic-of-the-AIDA-mission-concept.png
Schematic showing the progress of the mission. In the current proposal AIM is replaced with Hera, there is no MASCOT, and the CubeSats are now envisioned to be 6U instead of 3U

AIDA will target 65803 Didymos, a binary asteroid system in which one asteroid is orbited by a smaller one. The primary asteroid is about 800 metres (2,600 ft) in diameter; its small satellite is about 150 metres (490 ft) in diameter in an orbit about 1.1 km (0.68 mi) from the primary. Didymos is not an Earth-crossing asteroid, and there is no possibility that the deflection experiment could create an impact hazard to Earth. [14]

The impact of the 300 kilograms (660 lb)DART spacecraft at 6.25 km/s will produce a velocity change on the order of 0.4 mm/s, which leads to a significant change in the mutual orbit of these two objects, but only a minimal change in the heliocentric orbit of the system. [13] [17] [14] AIDA will provide a great benefit obtaining the size of the resulting impact crater in addition to the momentum transfer measurement, as the effects of porosity and strength of the target are needed to calculate the momentum transfer efficiency. [17] [14]

DART impacted the small moon of the asteroid Didymos on 26 September 2022, while Hera would arrive at Didymos in 2027, five years after DART's impact. To maximize scientific outcome, the AIDA team had proposed to delay DART's launch so that Hera would arrive at the asteroid first, enabling it to study DART's impact, the plume, the crater, and the freshly exposed material. [10] While most of the initial objectives of AIDA would still be met if Hera arrives after DART, as a drawback, data from direct observation of the impact and ejecta will not be obtained. [10]

AIDA mission architecture

Host spacecraftSecondary spacecraftRemarks
DART LICIACube [25]
  • By the Italian Space Agency
  • 6U CubeSat
  • LUKE (LICIACube Unit Key Explorer) Camera and LEIA (LICIACube Explorer Imaging for Asteroid) Camera
HeraJuventas [40] [5]
  • By GomSpace and GMV
  • 6U CubeSat orbiter
  • Camera, JuRa monostatic low-frequency radar, [41] accelerometers, and gravimeter [38]
  • Will attempt to land on the asteroid surface [5] [38]
Milani [7]
  • By Italy/Czech/Finnish consortium
  • 6U CubeSat orbiter
  • VIS/Near-IR spectrometer, volatile analyzer
  • Will characterize Didymos and Dimorphos surface composition and the dust environment around the system
  • Will perform technology demonstration experiments
SCI

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asteroid</span> Minor planets found within the inner Solar System

An asteroid is a minor planet—an object that is neither a true planet nor a comet—that orbits within the inner Solar System. They are rocky, metallic, or icy bodies with no atmosphere. The size and shape of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from small rubble piles under a kilometer across to Ceres, a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Near-Earth object</span> Small Solar System body with an orbit that can bring it close to Earth

A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body with an orbit around the Sun that can bring it near the Earth. By astronomical convention, a small natural Solar System body is a NEO if its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) is less than 1.3 astronomical units (AU). This definition applies to the object's orbit, rather than its current position, thus an object is considered a NEO even if it is far from making a close approach of Earth. If a NEO's orbit crosses the Earth's orbit, and the object is larger than 140 meters (460 ft) across, it is considered a potentially hazardous object (PHO). Most known PHOs and NEOs are asteroids, but about 0.35% are comets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asteroid impact avoidance</span> Methods to prevent destructive asteroid hits

Asteroid impact avoidance comprises the methods by which near-Earth objects (NEO) on a potential collision course with Earth could be diverted away, preventing destructive impact events. An impact by a sufficiently large asteroid or other NEOs would cause, depending on its impact location, massive tsunamis or multiple firestorms, and an impact winter caused by the sunlight-blocking effect of large quantities of pulverized rock dust and other debris placed into the stratosphere. A collision 66 million years ago between the Earth and an object approximately 10 kilometres wide is thought to have produced the Chicxulub crater and triggered the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event that is understood by the scientific community to have caused the extinction of all non-avian dinosaurs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lander (spacecraft)</span> Type of spacecraft

A lander is a spacecraft that descends towards, then comes to rest on the surface of an astronomical body other than Earth. In contrast to an impact probe, which makes a hard landing that damages or destroys the probe upon reaching the surface, a lander makes a soft landing after which the probe remains functional.

Don Quijote is a past space mission concept that has been studied from 2005 until 2007 by the European Space Agency, and which would investigate the effects of crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid to test whether a spacecraft could successfully deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. The orbiter was designed to last for seven years. The mission did not proceed beyond initial studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Active asteroid</span> Bodies orbiting within the main asteroid belt which have shown cometary activity

Active asteroids are small Solar System bodies that have asteroid-like orbits but show comet-like visual characteristics. That is, they show a coma, tail, or other visual evidence of mass-loss, but their orbits remain within Jupiter's orbit. These bodies were originally designated main-belt comets (MBCs) in 2006 by astronomers David Jewitt and Henry Hsieh, but this name implies they are necessarily icy in composition like a comet and that they only exist within the main-belt, whereas the growing population of active asteroids shows that this is not always the case.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">65803 Didymos</span> Near-Earth asteroid

65803 Didymos is a sub-kilometer asteroid and binary system that is classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid and near-Earth object of the Apollo group. The asteroid was discovered in 1996 by the Spacewatch survey at Kitt Peak, and its small 160-meter minor-planet moon, named Dimorphos, was discovered in 2003. Due to its binary nature, the asteroid was then named Didymos, the Greek word for 'twin'.

Strictly speaking, a satellite collision is when two satellites collide while in orbit around a third, much larger body, such as a planet or moon. This definition can be loosely extended to include collisions between sub-orbital or escape-velocity objects with an object in orbit. Prime examples are the anti-satellite weapon tests.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patrick Michel</span>

Patrick Michel is a French planetary scientist, Senior Researcher at CNRS, leader of the team TOP of the CNRS and Université Côte d'Azur Lagrange Laboratory at the Côte d'Azur Observatory in Nice (France), and also a Global Fellow of the University of Tokyo.

The Space Safety Programme, formerly the Space Situational Awareness (SSA) programme, is the European Space Agency's (ESA) initiative to monitor hazards from space, determine their risk, make this data available to the appropriate authorities and where possible, mitigate the threat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Double Asteroid Redirection Test</span> 2021 NASA planetary defense mission

Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was a NASA space mission aimed at testing a method of planetary defense against near-Earth objects (NEOs). It was designed to assess how much a spacecraft impact deflects an asteroid through its transfer of momentum when hitting the asteroid head-on. The selected target asteroid, Dimorphos, is a minor-planet moon of the asteroid Didymos; neither asteroid poses an impact threat to Earth, but their joint characteristics made them an ideal benchmarking target. Launched on 24 November 2021, the DART spacecraft successfully collided with Dimorphos on 26 September 2022 at 23:14 UTC about 11 million kilometers from Earth. The collision shortened Dimorphos' orbit by 32 minutes, greatly in excess of the pre-defined success threshold of 73 seconds. DART's success in deflecting Dimorphos was due to the momentum transfer associated with the recoil of the ejected debris, which was substantially larger than that caused by the impact itself.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Planetary Missions Program Office</span> Division of NASA responsible for the Discovery, New Frontiers, and Solar System Exploration programs

The Planetary Missions Program Office is a division of NASA headquartered at the Marshall Space Flight Center, formed by the agency's Science Mission Directorate (SMD). Succeeding the Discovery and New Frontiers Program Office, it was established in 2014 to manage the Discovery and New Frontiers programs of low and medium-cost missions by third-party institutions, and the Solar System Exploration program of NASA-led missions that focus on prioritized planetary science objectives. The Discovery and New Frontiers programs were established in 1992 and 2001 respectively, and have launched fourteen primary missions together, along with two missions launched under the administration of the Planetary Missions Program Office. The Solar System Exploration Program was established alongside the office, with three missions planned for launch under the new program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dimorphos</span> Moon of asteroid Didymos

Dimorphos is a natural satellite or moon of the near-Earth asteroid 65803 Didymos, with which it forms a binary system. The moon was discovered on 20 November 2003 by Petr Pravec in collaboration with other astronomers worldwide. Dimorphos has a diameter of 177 meters (581 ft) across its longest extent and it was the target of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), a NASA space mission that deliberately collided a spacecraft with the moon on 26 September 2022 to alter its orbit around Didymos. Before the impact by DART, Dimorphos had a shape of an oblate spheroid with a surface covered in boulders but virtually no craters. The moon is thought to have formed when Didymos shed its mass due to its rapid rotation, which formed an orbiting ring of debris that conglomerated into a low-density rubble pile that became Dimorphos today.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LICIACube</span> ASI CubeSat aboard DART spacecraft

Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids is a six-unit CubeSat of the Italian Space Agency (ASI). LICIACube is a part of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission and carries out observational analysis of the Didymos asteroid binary system after DART's impact on Dimorphos. It communicates directly with Earth, sending back images of the ejecta and plume of DART's impact as well as having done asteroidal study during its flyby of the Didymos system from a distance of 56.7 km (35.2 mi), 165 seconds after DART's impact. LICIACube is the first purely Italian autonomous spacecraft in deep space. Data archiving and processing is managed by the Space Science Data Center (SSDC) of the ASI.

NEO-MAPP is a project for studying planetary defence and asteroid exploration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephan Ulamec</span>

Stephan Ulamec is an Austrian geophysicist, born in Salzburg on January 27, 1966, with more than 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals and several participations in space missions and payloads operated by diverse space agencies. He is working at the German Aerospace Center in Cologne. He is regularly giving lectures about his publications in aerospace engineering at the University of Applied Sciences: Fachhochschule FH-Aachen. Main aspects of his work are related to the exploration of small bodies in the solar system.

<i>Hera</i> (space mission) ESA spacecraft which will study the effects of the DART Impactor on the asteroid moon Dimorphos

Hera is a space mission in development at the European Space Agency in its Space Safety program. Its primary objective is to study the Didymos binary asteroid system that was impacted by DART and contribute to validation of the kinetic impact method to deviate a near-Earth asteroid in a colliding trajectory with Earth. It will measure the size and the morphology of the crater created by and momentum transferred by an artificial projectile impacting an asteroid, which will allow measuring the efficiency of the deflection produced by the impact. It will also analyze the expanding debris cloud caused by the impact.

References

  1. ↑ Talbert, Tricia (17 February 2021). "DART Launch Moves to Secondary Window".PD-icon.svg This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  2. 1 2 Foust, Jeff (20 October 2022). "ESA moves two missions to Falcon 9". SpaceNews . Retrieved 20 October 2022.
  3. ↑ "AIDA study". European Space Agency. 19 December 2012. Archived from the original on 20 October 2014. Retrieved 19 September 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Carnelli, Ian (11 October 2017). "The Hera Mission Study" (PDF). ESA. Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 The Juventas CubeSat in Support of ESA's Hera Mission to the Asteroid Didymos Hannah R. Goldberg, Özgür Karatekin, Birgit Ritter, Alain Herique, Paolo Tortora, Claudiu Prioroc, Borja Garcia Gutierrez, Paolo Martino, Ian Carnelli. 33rd Annual AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites
  6. ↑ AIDA mission rationale Archived May 11, 2015, at the Wayback Machine . ESA, 25 May 2012.
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  8. 1 2 Bardan, Roxana (26 September 2022). "NASA's DART Mission Hits Asteroid in First-Ever Planetary Defense Test". NASA. Retrieved 30 September 2022.
  9. ↑ "Hera". www.esa.int. Retrieved 5 May 2022.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Michel, Patrick; Kueppers, Michael; Sierks, Holger; Carnelli, Ian (26 April 2017). "European component of the AIDA mission to a binary asteroid: Characterization and interpretation of the impact of the DART mission" (PDF). Advances in Space Research (Article) (published 18 December 2017). 62 (8): 2261–2272. doi:10.1016/j.asr.2017.12.020. S2CID   55274187.
  11. 1 2 ExoMars Rover Gets Funding Despite Schiaparelli Mars Lander Crash. Alixandra Caole Vila, Nature World News 7 December 2016
  12. ↑ NASA presses ahead with asteroid mission despite ESA funding decision Jeff Foust, Space News 13 December 2016
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  15. ↑ Cubesat Companions for ESA's Astroid[sic] Mission. Source: ESA. November 2, 2015.
  16. ↑ Lasagni Manghi, Riccardo; Modenini, Dario; Zannoni, Marco; Tortora, Paolo (2018). "Preliminary orbital analysis for a Cube Sat mission to the Didymos binary asteroid system". Advances in Space Research. 62 (8): 2290–2305. Bibcode:2018AdSpR..62.2290L. doi:10.1016/j.asr.2017.12.014. hdl: 11585/632497 . S2CID   125298773.
  17. 1 2 3 4 5 Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment (AIDA) study Archived 2015-06-07 at the Wayback Machine .
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  19. 1 2 Andone, Dakin (25 July 2017). "NASA unveils plan to test asteroid defence technique". CNN. Retrieved 25 July 2017.
  20. ↑ Henry, Caleb (15 February 2017). "Luxembourgian minister unwilling to let ESA asteroid mission die without a fight". SpaceNews . Retrieved 10 June 2018.
  21. ↑ Bergin, Chris (7 January 2019). "Hera adds objectives to planetary defense test mission". NASASpaceFlight.com. Retrieved 11 January 2019.
  22. 1 2 Hera mission is approved as ESA receives biggest ever budget. Kerry Hebden, Room Space Journal. 29 November 2019.
  23. ↑ "Andrea Milani (1948–2018)". 29 November 2018.
  24. ↑ "L'INDUSTRIA ITALIANA IN PRIMA LINEA NELLA MISSIONE HERA DELL'ESA". 15 September 2020.
  25. 1 2 3 Asteroids have been hitting the Earth for billions of years. In 2022, we hit back. Archived 2018-10-31 at the Wayback Machine Andy Rivkin, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. September 27, 2018.
  26. 1 2 Kretschmar, Peter; Küppers, Michael (20 December 2018). "The CubeSat Revolution" (PDF). ESA . Retrieved 24 January 2019.
  27. 1 2 Double Asteroid Redirection Test: The Earth Strikes Back. Elena Adams; Daniel O'Shaughnessy; Matthew Reinhart, etal. 2019 IEEE Aerospace Conference; 2–9 March 2019. doi : 10.1109/AERO.2019.8742007 Quote: "In addition, DART is carrying a 6U CubeSat provided by Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI). The CubeSat will provide imagery documentation of the impact, as well as in situ observation of the impact site and resultant ejecta plume".
  28. ↑ DART Impact Ejecta Simulation and Visualization for Fly-Along CubeSat Operational Planning. Fahnestock, E.; Yu, Y.; Cheng, A. F. Astronomy Abstract Service; December 2018.
  29. ↑ Carnelli, Ian (31 January 2018). "Status of AIM/Hera" (PDF). ESA . Retrieved 11 June 2018.
  30. ↑ "Missione Hera, Tyvak Int. realizzerà il cubesat "Andrea Milani"". 16 September 2020. Retrieved 16 June 2021.
  31. ↑ "BACK TO SPACE: IN 2024 POLITECNICO DI MILANO WILL TAKE PART TO THE FIRST PLANETARY DEFENSE MISSION". 16 September 2020. Retrieved 16 June 2021.
  32. ↑ "CubeSats joining Hera mission to asteroid system". Space Daily. 8 January 2019. Retrieved 11 January 2019.
  33. ↑ https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/fy2021_congressional_justification.pdf - 10 February 2020 PD-icon.svg This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .
  34. ↑ "LICIACUBE: NASA CHOOSES AN ARGOTEC'S SMALLSAT!". Argotec. Archived from the original on 25 June 2020. Retrieved 17 December 2019.
  35. ↑ DART: Home page at APL Archived 2018-05-10 at the Wayback Machine . DART Spacecraft. APL, 2017.
  36. 1 2 3 The Hera mission: European component of the ESA-NASA AIDA mission to a binary asteroid. Michel, Patrick; Küppers, Michael; Carnelli, Ian. 42nd COSPAR Scientific Assembly. Held 14–22 July 2018, in Pasadena, California, USA, Abstract id. B1.1-42-18
  37. ↑ Raducan, Sabina D.; Collins, Gareth S.; Davison, Thomas M. (1 May 2019). "Numerical modelling of the DART impact and the importance of the Hera mission" (PDF). IAA Planetary Defense Conference. Washington DC. S2CID   150382273. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 April 2021. Retrieved 27 April 2021.
  38. 1 2 3 4 5 Exploration of the binary asteroid 65803 Didymos by the Hera mission. EPSC Abstracts. Vol. 13, EPSC-DPS2019-583-1, 2019. EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019. 15–20 September 2019.
  39. ↑ Ferrari, Fabio; Franzese, Vittorio; Pugliatti, Mattia; Giordano, Carmine; Topputo, Francesco (15 March 2021). "Preliminary mission profile of Hera's Milani CubeSat". Advances in Space Research (Article). 67 (6): 2010–2029. arXiv: 2102.01559 . Bibcode:2021AdSpR..67.2010F. doi:10.1016/j.asr.2020.12.034. ISSN   0273-1177. S2CID   231750015.
  40. 1 2 A Low Frequency Radar to Fathom Asteroids from Juventas Cubesat on HERA. Alain Herique, Dirk Plettemeier, Wlodek Kofman, Yves Rogez, Christopher Buck, and Hannah Goldberg. EPSC Abstracts. Vol. 13, EPSC-DPS2019-807-2, 2019. EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019.
  41. 1 2 JuRa: the Juventas Radar on Hera to fathom Didymoon Alain Herique, Dirk Plettemeier, Hannah Goldberg, Wlodek Kofman, and the JuRa Team. EPSC Abstracts. Vol.14, EPSC2020-595. doi : 10.5194/epsc2020-595.
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