Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission

I completed this commission on the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission for American Scientist, May-June 2021, Volume 109 Number 3.

This NASA experiment will take place at Didymos, a binary near-Earth asteroid. Didymos measures 780 meters across. DART also will target its smaller companion, Dimorphos, which is only about 160 meters wide—more typical of the size of asteroids considered to pose the greatest threat to our planet.

In October 2022, DART will attempt to change the path of Dimorphos using the “kinetic impactor technique”: It will fly into the asteroid like a battering ram. The impact of the 500-kilogram spacecraft should reduce Dimorphos’s velocity by about one half of one percent, enough of a reduction to measure easily from Earth.