NASA and SpaceX built a Shot to Save the World
I often marvel at how some stories slip past the media. This one deserves to be revisited - in 2021 NASA and @SpaceX launched a test spacecraft designed to redirect planet-killing asteroids and the results are in:
"The DART mission targeted the Didymos-Dimorphos asteroid system, first discovered in the mid-1990s. The primary goals of the DART mission were simple, at least in concept: Hit Dimorphos with the roughly 570-kilogram (half-ton) DART spacecraft"
"The goal was to alter the orbital period of Dimorphos around Didymos significantly and measure that change and characterize the physics of the impact. If successful, it would be the first demonstration of deflecting an asteroid using so-called kinetic impactor technology."
What happened?
"The DART spacecraft successfully impacted Dimorphos on 26 September 2022. The event was recorded by a cadre of Earth-based telescopes and ..., a briefcase-sized spacecraft ... that launched with DART"
"Researchers had calculated that the impact, which occurred roughly head-on, would shorten Dimorphos’s orbital period by just under 10 minutes."
After impact, "scientists discovered that Dimorphos is now traveling around Didymos once every 11 hours and 22 minutes. That’s a full 33 minutes shorter than its original orbital period" it was a success! /6
TLDR a @SpaceX rocket delivered the DART spacecraft to outer space. That 570kg spacecraft hit an asteroid orbiting another asteroid successfully and moved it "significantly".
AMAZING
We have a solid "shot" at deflecting a future planet killer!
So How Hard was this?
To paraphrase Scotty this “is like trying to hit a bullet with a smaller bullet whilst wearing a blindfold riding a horse”. Maybe not quite that hard but this is exceptionally more challenging than dropping something on the moon.
What next?
"Scientists aren’t yet finished with Didymos and Dimorphos: In 2024, researchers ... plan to launch a spacecraft to the system to further characterize the asteroids—including accurately measuring the mass of Dimorphos—and to study the crater created by the DART impact."
The full article is definitely worth a read.
PS I was so stoked after reading this that I rewatched the Martian:)
https://eos.org/articles/nasas-double-asteroid-redirection-test-is-a-smashing-success
