Planetary science

DART

Completed

Image: NASA · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Launched: 24 Nov 202106:21:02 UTC
Last contact: 26 Sept 202223:14:00 UTC
Duration: 10 months 2 days
Destinations: Didymos, Dimorphos

The first planetary defence test. NASA deliberately crashed the spacecraft into Dimorphos, the small moon of the asteroid Didymos, and shortened its orbit by 32 minutes.

Milestones

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2022

Spacecraft

DART

Impactor

Completed

Box-shaped spacecraft that steered itself into the asteroid at about 6 km/s using an onboard camera.

Launch mass: 610 kg
Dry mass: 500 kg
Size: 1.2 m × 1.3 m, span 19 m
Power: Solar
Built by: Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory
Last contact: 26 Sept 2022, 23:14:00 UTC
Designator: 2021-110A

LICIACube

Flyby

Completed

Italian cubesat that separated two weeks earlier and photographed the impact and its plume of debris.

Launch mass: 13 kg
Dry mass: 12 kg
Size: 0.3 m × 0.2 m, span 0.3 m
Power: Solar
Built by: Argotec
Last contact: 24 Oct 2022
End declared: 23 Dec 2022

Mission details from science.nasa.gov.