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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.
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References
- 1 2 3 "Development of the ESMO student Moon satellite gets under way / Education / ESA". ESA. Retrieved 13 April 2013.
- ↑ "ESA concludes student ESMO Moon orbiter project".
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 "ESMO mission / Education / ESA". ESA. Retrieved 13 April 2013.
- ↑ Zuiani F., Gibbings A., Vetrisano M., Rizzi F., Martinez C., Vasile M.. Orbit Determination and Control for the European Student Moon Orbiter. Acta Astronautica, 2012, 79. pp. 67-78. ISSN 0094-5765
- ↑ Vetrisano M., Van der Weg W., Vasile M., Navigating to the Moon Along Low-Energy Transfers, Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy, 2012, October 2012, Volume 114, Issue 1-2, pp. 25-53