Asteroid Impact Deflection Assessment – Free PDF Download

Asteroid

•  Asteroids are small, airless rocky worlds revolving around the sun that are too small to be called planets. They are also known as planetoids or minor planets.
• In total, the mass of all the asteroids is less than that of Earth’s moon. But despite their size, asteroids can be dangerous. Many have hit Earth in the past, and more will crash into our planet in the future.

• Among all the causes that will eventually cause the extinction of life on Earth, an asteroid hit is widely acknowledged as one of the likeliest.

 AIDA

• It is an ambitious double-spacecraft mission to deflect an asteroid in space, to prove the technique as a viable method of planetary defence.
• The mission, which includes NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), is known as the Asteroid Impact Deflection Assessment (AIDA).
• The target is the smaller of two bodies in the “double Didymos asteroids”
• Didymos is a near-Earth asteroid system
• The project aims to deflect the orbit of the smaller body
• Then a second spacecraft will survey

Tools

• NASA is building the Double Asteroid Impact Test (DART) spacecraft for launch in summer 2021.
• Flying along with DART will be an Italian-made called LICIACube, to record the moment of impact.
• Hera will also deploy a pair of CubeSats
• This can help turn this experiment into a technique that could be repeated, as needed, in the event of a real threat.

Hera

• Hera is the proposed European component of the ESA–NASA AIDA mission. The Hera spacecraft would focus on key measurements to validate impact and asteroid deflection models such as the detailed characterisation of the impact crater made by the DART impactor.
• Hera would also measure the DART impact outcome, such as change in the binary system orbit, and would enable detailed characterisation of the Didymoon volume and surface properties, as well as measure the volume and morphology of the DART impact crater.

Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART):

• On the sidelines, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in USA will also launch the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) between 2020 and 2021, which will target Didymoon as part of its planetary defence programme.

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