NASA has set a launch date to the Double Asteroid Redirection Test. This mission is the most Hollywood-esque of NASA's missions. It is a practical test of how we can change an asteroid's trajectory in a meaningful and predictable manner.
The Planetary Defense Coordination Office manages the DART mission. The DART mission involves sending two satellites to the Didymos binary, a nearby pair of asteroids. It has one large-ish, roughly 780-meter-wide asteroid that is Didymos itself and a 160-meter-wide moonlet within its orbit.
The moonlet being more likely to be a threat to Earth is why we are testing the possibility of it being intercepted by smashing into one at almost 15,000 miles an hour. The moonlet's speed will be affected by this, but only by a fraction. Its orbit period will also be affected. It is difficult to know how much this will affect future asteroid-deflection missions. There is not much science available on the impact of your spacecraft on space rocks.
The companion spacecraft called the Light Italian CubeSat to Imagine Asteroids or LICIACube just received final touches. It will be launched shortly prior to the operation. It will attempt the flyby at the moment of impact and capture any plumes of ejecta as well as the impact crater.
It was an exciting and fascinating mission, but it had to be delayed beyond its initial launch window in the summer. November 23 marks the start of the new launch window. DART will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Vandenberg, California at 10:20 pm.
Earth authorities are becoming more adept at touching and reaching asteroids with Osiris-Rex, Japan's Hayabusa-2 missions and Japan's Hayabusa-2 missions. We will soon learn more about the attack plan on the Didymos binary.
