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Science

Set a calendar alert: NASA to broadcast first asteroid redirect on Monday

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Enlarge / An artist’s conception of DART’s electronics in the last moments before they suffer catastrophic failure.

This coming Monday, NASA will broadcast its first attempt to modify the orbit of an asteroid, a capability that will be essential if we detect an asteroid that poses a threat of colliding with Earth. The planetary defense effort is focused on a craft called DART, for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, which will target a small asteroid called Dimorphos that orbits the larger 65803 Didymos, forming a binary system. If all goes according to plan, DART will direct itself to a head-on collision that slows Dimorphos, altering its orbit around Didymos. NASA has repeatedly emphasized that there’s no way for either asteroid or any material released by the collision to pose a threat to Earth.

Ars will be at the mission control center in the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) for the planned collision, which will also be broadcast live on NASA’s YouTube channels. While we’ll know immediately whether the collision occurred as planned, it may take several months before we’re certain that Dimorphos’ orbit was successfully modified.

To get you ready for Monday’s festivities, we’ve put together a background on the DART mission and the planned follow-up observations.

DART and its final approach

The DART spacecraft itself is a bit over 600 kg and is notable primarily for its lack of instruments. Its solar panels include an experimental concentrating solar cell that occupies less space to generate the same amount of power as existing space-based hardware, and its main transmitter is testing a new antenna configuration. Its ion engine is also a next-generation evolution of previous NASA hardware.

But all of the action is handled through a single camera, the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation, or DRACO, a 2,560×2,160-pixel single-color camera. DRACO and the transmission hardware are capable of sending an image back to Earth every second. During its final approach to Didymos, DART will be distant enough that round-trip transmissions will take over a minute. As such, the final approach and targeting of the asteroid will be handled by an on-board navigation system called SMART Nav (Small-body Maneuvering Autonomous Real Time Navigation).

Right now, Dimorphos is so small that DRACO is unable to resolve it, and it will stay that way until roughly an hour and a half prior to impact. As described by Evan Smith, DART’s deputy mission system engineer, the system will shift over to on-board navigation at about four hours before impact, and the SMART Nav will track the larger Didymos and use that for navigation until about 50 minutes before collision, or about a half-hour after it can be resolved. At 2.5 minutes prior to the collision, the ion engine will be shut off, and DART will coast into a collision at about 6 kilometers a second.

Even though Dimorphos is only about 120 meters across, it will completely fill the view from DRACO starting about two minutes before collision. “We don’t know what Dimorphos looks like,” said Nancy Chabot, a planetary scientist at the APL. “This is going to be the first time we even see what this asteroid looks like.” In the final image, sent a second before impact, it will resolve features that are only tens of centimeters across, according to Chabot.

And then, if everything goes well, the transmissions will stop.

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China Hopes to Redirect a Nearby Asteroid Within the Next Four Years

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Artist’s impression of Dimorphos shortly after being struck by NASA’s DART spacecraft. China’s proposed kinetic impaction test would likely use a similar strategy.
Image: ESA

The global effort to protect Earth from dangerous asteroids is set to become stronger, as China has announced its intentions to test an asteroid redirect system as early as 2025.

Speaking to China Central Television on Sunday, Wu Yanhua, deputy head of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), described China’s preliminary plans to embark on the planetary defense project, according to Chinese state-owned news agency Global Times. Wu’s comments coincided with Space Day, an annual event that commemorates the 1970 launch of China’s first satellite, Dongfanghong-1, in 1970.

For the proposed test, Wu said a probe would closely survey a near-Earth object prior to smashing into it. Known as kinetic impaction, the idea is to alter the orbital trajectory of a threatening asteroid by directing a large, high-speed spacecraft into the object. NASA is currently running a similar test, known as the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, which seeks to deliberately crash a space probe into Dimorphos—a tiny asteroid—later this year.

The Global Times says the CNSA project is in its infancy and is still being reviewed for approval. The Chinese space agency is targeting 2025 or 2026 to conduct the test, a timeline that coincides with the end of China’s 14th Five-year plan period, according to Wu.

In addition, Wu said the CNSA hopes to develop a ground-based monitoring and warning system to analyze and catalog potentially dangerous near-Earth objects. No further details were given, but the system will likely emulate NASA’s Sentry-II monitoring system, which autonomously evaluates asteroid impact risks. Software designed to simulate the risks posed by asteroids and tabletop exercises to rehearse the defense process are also planned, according to the Global Times, adding that China is “shouldering the responsibility as a major global power in safeguarding the Earth with other countries.” The proposed monitoring and warning system would precede the asteroid mitigation test, Wu said.

Having more eyes on the sky is a good thing. My hope is that CNSA, NASA, and other space agencies and astronomical groups will pool their resources to make sure no threatening asteroids are missed and to coordinate these efforts in meaningful ways. NASA says it’s currently tracking 28,000 near-Earth objects and that roughly 3,000 are being added to the list each year.

The proposed CNSA program and kinetic impaction test is welcome news and another sign of China’s ongoing ambitions in space and space exploration. The country’s space-based initiatives are advancing quickly, as evidenced by its robotic lunar and Martian missions and its nascent space station, which is being made available to foreign astronauts, including space tourists.

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NASA Is Going To Try To Re-Direct The Path Of An Asteroid

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Illustration: NASA

If you’re a fan, like I am, of not being crushed to death by a rock that falls from the sky, then you should be interested in the mission NASA launched today with a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The spacecraft in the nose of that rocket is called DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), and that spacecraft is going to smack right into the asteroid Dimorphos in hopes of redirecting its path.

Now, I’m happy to say this is being done not because Dimorphos is actually threatening to hit the Earth but because it makes for a good test subject. See, Dimorphos is part of a binary pair of asteroids and orbits around the asteroid Didymos, so NASA can tell if the impact of DART into Dimorphos affected its orbit around Didymos. It can then use that information to calculate how a similar strike to an asteroid potentially headed to Earth could be deflected.

The spacecraft is small and boxy, and it will hit Dimorphos at an impressive 14,760 mph, sped along by its NEXT xenon ion thruster engine, which converts solar energy into gradual but persistent thrust.

Illustration: NASA

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An onboard camera and autonomous navigation software will guide DART to its self-sacrifice into the asteroid, which will change the speed of the asteroid’s orbit around the main asteroid by a fraction of a percent. But that should affect the orbital period by several minutes, all of which will be confirmed by observations from Earth.

Illustration: Ted Lopez / Johns Hopkins APL

DART won’t arrive at the asteroid pair until next September or so, which means you have plenty of time to figure out how to get close if you want a ringside seat.

The ability to deflect an asteroid could one day prove to be absolutely crucial to the safety of everything living on Earth. While, so far, NASA does not predict an asteroid of significant size hitting Earth in the next century or so, there have been 1,200 meteor impacts to Earth from asteroids over three feet in length since 1988, and only 0.42 percent of those—five—were actually predicted in advance.

So, it’s not exactly like we have a really solid handle on this whole asteroid-prediction thing, and figuring out a way to be ready to deflect something would really be a great idea. Ideally, if this test works, a similar deflecting spacecraft will be made available and be ready to go, should the situation arise in the future.

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SpaceX schedules next Starlink launch, fires up rocket for asteroid redirect mission

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Update: SpaceX has successfully static fired the Falcon 9 tasked with launching DART. The rocket will now roll back to SLC-4’s integration hangar for payload installation before rolling out to the pad a second time.

SpaceX has scheduled its next East Coast Starlink launch just a few weeks after the latest as a different Falcon 9 rocket prepares to launch NASA’s DART asteroid redirection demonstration mission.

On Tuesday, NASA confirmed that a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is on track to launch the Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) spacecraft no earlier than (NET) 10:21 pm PST on Tuesday, November 23rd (06:21 UTC 24 Nov). Following the successful launch of NASA and the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Sentinel 6A spacecraft in November 2020 and the first launch of a full batch of laser-linked Starlink satellites on September 14th, DART will be SpaceX’s third West Coast launch in just over 12 months and the first time the company has launched out of Vandenberg twice in one year since 2019.

Up next, Spaceflight Now and launch photographer Ben Cooper recently confirmed that SpaceX has already scheduled its next Starlink launch after a successful mission on November 13th, aiming to deliver another batch of ~53 laser-linked satellites to orbit NET 1:36am EST (06:36 UTC), Wednesday, December 1st.

Oddly, Spaceflight Now’s launch calendar indicates that SpaceX’s next Starlink launch won’t help recent confusion over the constellations mission naming scheme. SpaceX’s most recent Starlink launch was deemed “Starlink 4-1,” which is explained below.

“In simple terms, the first ~4400-satellite phase of SpaceX’s Starlink constellation is split into five groups of satellites – known as shells – with different orbital altitudes and inclinations (the orbit’s tilt). In May, SpaceX’s most recent East Coast Starlink launch effectively completed the first of those five shells or groups. With Starlink V1.5’s September debut, SpaceX also debuted a new naming scheme, deeming the mission Starlink 2-1 – the first launch of the second shell. Based on the inclination implied in Starlink 4-1’s hazard warning, Shell 4 refers to a second group of 1584 satellites almost identical to Shell 1, while Shell 2 is a semi-polar group of 720 satellites. That means that Shells 3 and 5 are sets of either 340 or 158 satellites at slightly different altitudes in polar orbit and will likely be the last Phase 1 Starlink satellites SpaceX launches.”

Teslarati.com — November 7th, 2021

SpaceX’s next Starlink launch, however, is apparently named “Starlink 4-3,” implying that the company has either skipped a launch or was forced to swap the order of two missions for unknown reasons (perhaps the same reason that Starlink 2-3 – itself leapfrogging 2-2 – was indefinitely delayed from an original October launch target. In short, aside from being few and far between for unspecified reasons, the sequencing of SpaceX Starlink launches have been a mess in the second half of 2021 and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change anytime soon.

Barring the delay of one or several other missions, CEO Elon Musk’s recent statement that SpaceX is “aiming [to launch] 80 tons” or ~175,000 pounds of payload in Q4 2021 leaves room for two more Starlink launches (including 4-3) in the last six weeks of the year.

Falcon 9’s Sentinel 6A launch and landing, November 2020. (SpaceX)

In the meantime, as early as November 23rd, SpaceX is scheduled to launch DART to an unspecified orbit – perhaps a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) but maybe directly into deep space, the latter of which would make it Falcon 9’s first launch beyond the Earth-Moon system. Despite the extremely light payload, Falcon 9 booster B1063 is expected to land at sea on drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY), which falls in favor of a high-velocity Earth escape launch.

A SpaceX, JHUAPL (Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab), and NASA team successfully mated the ~550-670 kg (1200-1500 lb) spacecraft to Falcon 9’s payload adapter on November 10th and are likely just a few days away from encapsulating DART inside the rocket’s comparatively massive payload fairing. Sans payload, Falcon 9 will likely roll out to SpaceX’s SLC-4E pad and perform a prelaunch static fire test any day now before heading back to the hangar for fairing installation.

Update: A NASASpaceflight.com forum member spotted Falcon 9 vertical while traveling by train past SpaceX’s Vandenberg launch pad, confirming that a static fire is imminent.

SpaceX schedules next Starlink launch, fires up rocket for asteroid redirect mission








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SpaceX schedules next Starlink launch, fires up rocket for asteroid redirect mission

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Update: SpaceX has successfully static fired the Falcon 9 tasked with launching DART. The rocket will now roll back to SLC-4’s integration hangar for payload installation before rolling out to the pad a second time.

SpaceX has scheduled its next East Coast Starlink launch just a few weeks after the latest as a different Falcon 9 rocket prepares to launch NASA’s DART asteroid redirection demonstration mission.

On Tuesday, NASA confirmed that a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is on track to launch the Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) spacecraft no earlier than (NET) 10:21 pm PST on Tuesday, November 23rd (06:21 UTC 24 Nov). Following the successful launch of NASA and the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Sentinel 6A spacecraft in November 2020 and the first launch of a full batch of laser-linked Starlink satellites on September 14th, DART will be SpaceX’s third West Coast launch in just over 12 months and the first time the company has launched out of Vandenberg twice in one year since 2019.

Up next, Spaceflight Now and launch photographer Ben Cooper recently confirmed that SpaceX has already scheduled its next Starlink launch after a successful mission on November 13th, aiming to deliver another batch of ~53 laser-linked satellites to orbit NET 1:36am EST (06:36 UTC), Wednesday, December 1st.

Oddly, Spaceflight Now’s launch calendar indicates that SpaceX’s next Starlink launch won’t help recent confusion over the constellations mission naming scheme. SpaceX’s most recent Starlink launch was deemed “Starlink 4-1,” which is explained below.

“In simple terms, the first ~4400-satellite phase of SpaceX’s Starlink constellation is split into five groups of satellites – known as shells – with different orbital altitudes and inclinations (the orbit’s tilt). In May, SpaceX’s most recent East Coast Starlink launch effectively completed the first of those five shells or groups. With Starlink V1.5’s September debut, SpaceX also debuted a new naming scheme, deeming the mission Starlink 2-1 – the first launch of the second shell. Based on the inclination implied in Starlink 4-1’s hazard warning, Shell 4 refers to a second group of 1584 satellites almost identical to Shell 1, while Shell 2 is a semi-polar group of 720 satellites. That means that Shells 3 and 5 are sets of either 340 or 158 satellites at slightly different altitudes in polar orbit and will likely be the last Phase 1 Starlink satellites SpaceX launches.”

Teslarati.com — November 7th, 2021

SpaceX’s next Starlink launch, however, is apparently named “Starlink 4-3,” implying that the company has either skipped a launch or was forced to swap the order of two missions for unknown reasons (perhaps the same reason that Starlink 2-3 – itself leapfrogging 2-2 – was indefinitely delayed from an original October launch target. In short, aside from being few and far between for unspecified reasons, the sequencing of SpaceX Starlink launches have been a mess in the second half of 2021 and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change anytime soon.

Barring the delay of one or several other missions, CEO Elon Musk’s recent statement that SpaceX is “aiming [to launch] 80 tons” or ~175,000 pounds of payload in Q4 2021 leaves room for two more Starlink launches (including 4-3) in the last six weeks of the year.

Falcon 9’s Sentinel 6A launch and landing, November 2020. (SpaceX)

In the meantime, as early as November 23rd, SpaceX is scheduled to launch DART to an unspecified orbit – perhaps a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) but maybe directly into deep space, the latter of which would make it Falcon 9’s first launch beyond the Earth-Moon system. Despite the extremely light payload, Falcon 9 booster B1063 is expected to land at sea on drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY), which falls in favor of a high-velocity Earth escape launch.

A SpaceX, JHUAPL (Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab), and NASA team successfully mated the ~550-670 kg (1200-1500 lb) spacecraft to Falcon 9’s payload adapter on November 10th and are likely just a few days away from encapsulating DART inside the rocket’s comparatively massive payload fairing. Sans payload, Falcon 9 will likely roll out to SpaceX’s SLC-4E pad and perform a prelaunch static fire test any day now before heading back to the hangar for fairing installation.

Update: A NASASpaceflight.com forum member spotted Falcon 9 vertical while traveling by train past SpaceX’s Vandenberg launch pad, confirming that a static fire is imminent.

SpaceX schedules next Starlink launch, fires up rocket for asteroid redirect mission








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New NASA mission will crash spacecraft into asteroid to redirect its path

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NASA is readying to test a planetary defense system that could one day prevent a “hazardous asteroid” from slamming into the Earth. 

The space agency Tuesday announced the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission is scheduled to launch via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Nov. 24 from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. 

The mission will test an asteroid defense plan called the kinetic impactor technique, which essentially involves shooting spacecraft at the asteroid at a speed of nearly 15,000 miles per hour to change its trajectory. 

“DART will be the first demonstration of the kinetic impactor technique to change the motion of an asteroid in space,” NASA said in a release. 

DART’s target will be a binary asteroid dubbed Didymos. The asteroid system is made up of a 780-meter asteroid and a smaller “moonlet” measuring 160 meters across. 

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Using cameras and autonomous navigation, the spacecraft will deliberately crash into the moonlet at a speed of 6.6 kilometers per second, according to NASA. 

“The collision will change the speed of the moonlet in its orbit around the main body by a fraction of one percent, but this will change the orbital period of the moonlet by several – enough to be observed and measured using telescopes on Earth,” the space agency said. 

After about a year of cruising through space, the spacecraft is scheduled to hit Didymos’ moonlet in September 2022. 

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NASA’s ‘DART’ mission will crash craft to redirect asteroid, scientists say

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NASA hopes a new mission that is expected to launch next month will demonstrate a technique that could prevent an asteroid from striking Earth.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, mission is directed by NASA to the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

“DART will be the first demonstration of the kinetic impactor technique to change the motion of an asteroid in space,” the space agency said.

DART will hitch a ride aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to a near-Earth asteroid system called (65803) Didymos.

It is comprised of a 780-meter wide body orbited by a 160-meter wide moonlet, “which is more typical of the size of asteroids that could pose the most likely significant threat to Earth,” NASA said.

Radar images of the near-Earth asteroid Didymos and its moonlet from 2003.NASA

Aided by cameras and autonomous navigation systems, DART will crash into the moonlet at 6.6 kilometers per second, NASA said.

“The collision will change the speed of the moonlet in its orbit around the main body by a fraction of one percent, but this will change the orbital period of the moonlet by several minutes — enough to be observed and measured using telescopes on Earth,” NASA said.

The launch is scheduled to take place Nov. 23 at 10:20 p.m. Pacific Standard Time from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The spacecraft will separate from the rocket and cruise for about a year before it is expected to intercept (65803) Didymos in September 2022.

DART will also use solar panels to charge electric ion thrusters, demonstrating another emerging space propulsion technology, NASA said.

“By utilizing electric propulsion, DART could benefit from significant flexibility to the mission timeline while demonstrating the next generation of ion engine technology, with applications to potential future NASA missions,” NASA said.

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