NASA chooses SpaceX for mission to change asteroid’s course via collision

NASA has selected SpaceX for the so-called Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission. A probe has to hit an asteroid at high speed to see if it can change the orbit of the object. This may one day be necessary to “defend” Earth.

According to NASA, this will be the first mission ever to demonstrate the ability to deflect an asteroid from its normal orbit by colliding with a high-speed spacecraft. The space agency calls this technique a ‘kinetic impactor’.

The $69 million mission should begin in June 2021 with a Falcon 9 rocket launch from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base, after which the DART spacecraft should reach the binary asteroid Didymos and collide with the smaller of the two objects. That should take place in October 2022, at a distance of 11 million kilometers from Earth and at a speed of 6 km/s. The larger of the two asteroids is 800m in diameter, while the smaller is 150m in size.

The collision will adjust the object’s speed by just a fraction of a percent, but that’s enough to measure from Earth, according to NASA. It involves adjusting the trajectory of the object by about half a millimeter per probe. The 500kg DART spacecraft has only a sun sensor, a star tracker and a camera on board and is powered by an ion engine and two solar panels.

A schematic representation of what will happen, whereby the data mentioned is no longer entirely correct.