NASA’s DART mission will try to deflect near-Earth asteroid on Sept 26

On September 26, NASA’s ‘Double Asteroid Redirection Test’ or DART is set to deflect an asteroid. The spacecraft will be trying to deflect the binary Didymos asteroid system. The success of DART’s one-way trip will be important in shaping NASA’s larger planetary defense system.

DART spacecraft will attempt to deflect the binary, near-Earth asteroid Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos. The probe will impact Dimorphos at a speed of 6.6km/s (23,760km/h), NewsBytes reports.

Dimorphos was selected as DART’s preliminary assignment as its speed around Diydmos is relatively lower than the twins’ speed around the sun. This will help decide DART’s kinetic impact more effectively.

DART spacecraft was launched in November 2021, the DART mission will be the first-ever space probe to demonstrate asteroid deflection by a kinetic impactor. The probe will strike the asteroid at a speed of nearly 24,000 kilometers per hour, with hopes of slowing down the asteroid slightly and changing its course, India Today reports.

The mission has been built and is operated by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), under the direction of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO).

The data from the crash can help scientists make mini-impacts in a lab and develop sophisticated computer models based on those results.