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NASA's DART mission will test our ability to hit an asteroid with a spaceship, but also test a new type of propulsion system for the agency.
The Evolutionary Xenon Thruster-Commercial is an ion drive. The electrical field created by the solar panels will be used to propel the craft rather than ignite hydrogen-based propellant as most rockets do. Ion drives can reach higher speeds than conventional rockets. NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, and Aerojet Rocketdyne collaborated to build the Next-C system, which will be tested in a mission called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test.
DART will launch from the Space Force Base in California on Wednesday at 1:58 a.m. The time is either Nov. 23 at 10:58 p.m. or Nov. 23 at 0658GMT. Scientists will be able to measure how much an impact on Didymos will change an asteroid's trajectory if a space rock ever threatens Earth. The coverage will start at 12:30 a.m. Here at Space.com and on NASA TV.
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A vacuum chamber is being used to test a Next-C thruster. The image is from NASA.
The system will be tested in space for the first time before the end of the mission. NASA used an ion drive on Deep Space 1 and Dawn, but it will be three times as powerful on the new NEXT-C.
Jeremy John, lead engineer for DART and an engineer for theJHUAPL, said in a video that it was a little sad to know that we would only be able to operate for a short time before hitting the asteroid.
Next-C won't be the main force pushing DART along its journey, but the 12 conventional thrusters aboard the spaceship will be responsible for much of the journey as it plunges into Dimorphos.
Next-C will light up as DART travels. According to the creators of NEXT-C, the purpose of the maneuvers is to take the ion drive for a test spin. The engineers will turn the system on to show that the ion drive can work in the harsh conditions of space, and that it can run with just the power generated by the solar panels.
"We're going to demonstrate that we can operate it in space, because part of the wonders of new technology is just that step from when you built it up to getting it to space and getting it to operate for the first time," said Elena Adams, an engineer at JH. We're demonstrating for NASA.
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