Space, the “kamikaze” Dart probe successfully launched with the Italian Liciacube
The separation from the launcher has occurred: now the NASA Dart probe flies autonomously towards the asteroid with the Italian microsatellite LiciaCube on board. The mission's goal is to test technology that could one day be used to change the course of a dangerous asteroid if it ever finds itself on a collision course with Earth.
A probe capable of hitting an asteroid and deflecting its trajectory from the Earth: it is not the plot of an apocalyptic film.
Today the Dart mission (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) and of the Italian microsatellite LICIACube, the first planetary defense of NASA, started successfully.
Launched at 7:20 am Italian time from the Vandenberg base in California aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, the Dart probe carries the LICIACube satellite built by the Argotec company of Turin, in collaboration and with the contribution of the Italian Space Agency ( Asi).
NASA's Dart probe has successfully separated from the last stage of the private aerospace company SpaceX's Falcon 9 launcher.
Dart is now on its way to its target: a small asteroid called Dimorphos orbiting a larger asteroid called Didymos.
This is the first large-scale planetary defense test, which aims to demonstrate a method of asteroid deflection technology. The cost of the mission is 325 million dollars, reports the BBC .
The two asteroids are not in danger of impact with Earth, but this test will serve as a test to see if this technology can shift an asteroid's orbit slightly to take it off course.
If ever one day an asteroid were on a collision course with the Earth, the Dart probe would intervene to hit it to redirect its course. NASA and other space agencies track potentially dangerous asteroids as they make their way around the sun.
Dart is expected to hit Dimorphos in the fall of 2022.
All the details.
WHAT DART WILL DO NOW
"The first launch phase went well and the Dart / LICIACube system is in flight," said Barbara Negri, head of human flight and scientific instrumentation at ASI.
Now the probe continues to travel thanks to both the thrust received by the launcher and its electric propulsion system. Dart's journey will last over 10 months to the small asteroid Dimorphos, which revolves around the larger asteroid Didymus.
For the American side, the mission was born from the collaboration between NASA and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
WHAT IS LICIACUBE
On board Dart there is also the Italian microsatellite LiciaCube (acronym for Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids), only 30x20x10cm and about 13 kilograms. It is an ASI project carried out entirely in the Argotec company in Turin. This is the first satellite built in our country to undertake a journey into deep space.
THE ITALIAN TEAM
The all-Italian scientific team of LICIACube includes researchers from the National Institute of Astrophysics (Inaf), the Polytechnic of Milan, the Universities of Bologna and Parthenope of Naples, the IFAC-CNR of Florence, and is coordinated by Elisabetta Dotto ( Inaf). In recent months, INAF has coordinated with the Galileo National Telescope (TNG) a campaign of spectroscopic observations of the asteroid Didymos that covers the entire rotation of the object.
GOAL OF THE DART MISSION WITH LICIACUBE
The objective of the mission, explains a note , will be to reach, in the autumn of next year, the binary system composed of the asteroid Didymos and its satellite Dimorphos and make the American probe Dart impact against the latter at high speed while LICIACube, staying at a safe distance, it will have the task of photographing and acquiring the impact data to verify if the asteroid will deviate its trajectory.
Dart will therefore be the first test, in full scale, of the kinetic impact technique for the purpose of Planetary Defense for the protection of the Earth, if in the future there are dangerous situations caused by celestial objects that intersect the Earth's orbit.
NONE OF THE TWO ASTEROIDS REPRESENTS A THREAT… BUT
As ASI explained, neither asteroid poses a threat to Earth. However, their orbit around the Sun makes them transit close enough to our planet for telescopes to observe the aftermath of the Dart collision and calculate how effective the mission will have been in altering Dimorphos' trajectory following the impact. The variation of the period of revolution of the latter around its more massive rocky companion will be measured in the phases immediately following the impact and then cumulatively for the following months and years.
In addition to what was detected from Earth, the images acquired by LiciaCube will provide unique elements acquired in situ and in the moments just after the impact, also relevant for the measurement of orbital deflection.
SACCOCCIA: "IT IS NOT A CASE THAT THIS ASSIGNMENT WAS ENTRUSTED TO ITALY"
"The small cubesat LiciaCube of the Italian Space Agency will have a highly challenging task in this unique planetary defense mission that will pave the way for many other missions" commented Asi president Giorgio Saccoccia.
"It is no coincidence that this task was entrusted to Italy – the only international partner of the mission – confirming the solidity of the bilateral relations between NASA and ASI and the reliability of the national industry and the scientific team made up of research and Italian universities ”underlined Saccoccia.
PARMITANO: "EXTRAORDINARY DART AND LICIACUBE MISSION"
Finally, “the mission is extraordinary. For Dart and LiciaCube there is a long journey in space of 11 million kilometers and which will last 11 months "underlined the Italian ESA astronaut, Luca Parmitano, during the live event organized at the ASI headquarters in Rome.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/spazio-lanciata-con-successo-la-sonda-kamikaze-dart-con-litaliano-liciacube/ on Wed, 24 Nov 2021 12:27:32 +0000.