The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched the ‘Double Asteroid Redirection Test’ spacecraft known as DART at 10:20 pm local time on the 23rd (3:20 pm Korean time) on the 24th. IT media Cnet reported that it will do so.
The DART spacecraft will soon be launched from the Vandenberg Space Station in California, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The spacecraft aims to change the orbit of the asteroid by giving a physical shock to one of the asteroid Didymos approaching Earth.
The asteroid Didymos is made up of the 780 m diameter Didymos asteroid and its moon ‘Dimorphos’. It is said that the size of Timophus is about 160 m, similar to the size of the pyramids of Egypt.
Dimorphos has so far no risk of colliding with Earth, but this test launch is for demonstration purposes only. DART is expected to collide with Dimorphus in late September or early October next year, when the asteroid is closest to Earth. At this time, the distance between Earth and Dimorphus is about 10,943,539 km, and the DART spacecraft accelerates toward Dimorphus 4 hours before the collision and collides at a speed of 24,140 km/h.
With this test launch, NASA will get data on how to deflect an asteroid likely to collide with Earth. In addition, it will be possible to determine how much impact the asteroid’s orbit can have when it collides with an asteroid and a spacecraft.
“What we’re trying to do is change the speed of the colliding asteroid by about centimeters per second. It’s not that fast, but if we do it a few seconds in advance, we can prevent the asteroid from collided with Earth,” said researchers at the Johns Hopkins University’s Institute of Applied Physics. said.
The structure of the DART spacecraft is rather simple. Weighing in at around 610 kg, the spacecraft is in the form of a metal box (size 1.2 x 1.3 x 1.3 m) with two rolls mounted on it, with a wide-spreading solar panel and camera, and a smaller cubeset to be placed just before the asteroid impact. is mounted It is reported that the spacecraft cost about $380 million to develop.
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Cubeset will be separated about 10 days before the impact of the asteroid, take an image and send it to Earth. By analyzing data observed from Earth and images taken by the cubeset, researchers can calculate how much the asteroid’s orbit has changed due to the impact.
NASA researchers expect the DART spacecraft to collide with Dimorphus, changing the speed of the asteroid Dimorphus and changing the orbital period of the asteroid Didymos by a few minutes.
