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NASA will impact a small asteroid with a spacecraft and measure changes in its orbit around a larger asteroid:
The first-ever mission to demonstrate an asteroid deflection technique for planetary defense -- the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) -- is moving from concept development to preliminary design phase, following NASA's approval on June 23.
"DART would be NASA's first mission to demonstrate what's known as the kinetic impactor technique -- striking the asteroid to shift its orbit -- to defend against a potential future asteroid impact," said Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This approval step advances the project toward an historic test with a non-threatening small asteroid."
While current law directs the development of the DART mission, DART is not identified as a specific budget item in the Administration's Fiscal Year 2018 budget.
The target for DART is an asteroid that will have a distant approach to Earth in October 2022, and then again in 2024. The asteroid is called Didymos -- Greek for "twin" -- because it's an asteroid binary system that consists of two bodies: Didymos A, about one-half mile (780 meters) in size, and a smaller asteroid orbiting it called Didymos B, about 530 feet (160 meters) in size. DART would impact only the smaller of the two bodies, Didymos B.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/65803_Didymos
Related: https://www.nas.nasa.gov/publications/articles/feature_asteroid_simulations.html
(Score: 2, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday July 02 2017, @11:25PM (1 child)
Now this is a very practical application of NASA's expertise and all space startups that launch their own craft should have their fingers in this pie.
Yeah, colonizing Mars, or even the moon, is a cute idea because we all grew up watching those shows on TV, but when times are tough and budgets are tight we have to think closer to the present. The mars rovers were awesome challenges accepted, and now we need something else more tangible and relevant to ensuring humanity's survival.
Failing that, we could at least weaponize asteroids. Launch propelled satellites with massive thruster capabilities to become embedded in the asteroid's surface and use coordinated firing patterns to direct the asteroid towards one of those really filthy countries with worthless inhabitants.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday July 02 2017, @11:43PM
Asteroids can also be used for gravity assists to inch Earth away from the Sun before it becomes a red giant.
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