NASA successfully launched the world’s first planetary defense system, DART, the spacecraft on Tuesday, at 22:21 Pacific time, from Vandenberg’s US space force base. It was transferred to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
In a statement posted on Twitter, NASA said that about 55 minutes after the flight, the spacecraft was separated from the second stage of the Falcon 9; accordingly, he will soon begin to orient himself towards the sun. It is noteworthy that NASA showed the launch process live on the YouTube channel.
The DART spacecraft was built by the Johns Hopkins Laboratory of Applied Physics in Maryland; Led by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office.
The spacecraft’s target is a small moon called Dimorphos, which is about 160 meters in diameter. The spacecraft will bang with it at about 6.6 kilometers per second. The collision should appear from September 26 to October 1, 2022.
The moon poses no threat to the Earth. The mission is just a test of new technology. NASA mentions a real-world check of an asteroid with foreign physical properties is a crucial step in analyzing current figures and advancing them further; To work on potentially dangerous asteroids in the future. It is noteworthy that there are currently more than 25,000 objects near Earth. None of these known asteroids larger than 140 meters have a chance of colliding with Earth in the next 100 years.
NASA Plans
NASA’s goal is to test whether the spacecraft could collide with another asteroid in the trajectory. The success of the test results is due to other data as well. This will be necessary for space agencies ever to need an asteroid to scroll to save Earth; This is to avoid catastrophic impacts.
The spacecraft will make almost one complete orbit around the sun before crossing Dimorphos, which moves close to a giant asteroid, Didymos. Astronomers call these asteroids a binary system; According to which one is a mini-moon for the other.
Four hours before the collision, the DART spacecraft headed autonomously to Dimorphos to collide at 15,000 mph. The onboard camera will take and send photos up to 20 seconds before real-time impact on Earth. The Italian Space Agency satellite, located ten days before the collision, is approaching 34 miles from the asteroid to take pictures every six seconds before and after the DART collision. Let’s see how NASA’s experiment will develop and how it will affect modern technology and the universe.
