“DART” mission: NASA lets it rip

It sounds like stuff from Hollywood: The course of an asteroid has to be changed – with the help of a probe the size of a soda machine. At NASA, this mission is called “DART”. During the night the maneuver ended with a resounding success.

The tension rose and rose in the NASA control center when the last images from the “DART” probe were transmitted at 1:15 a.m. German time, which can be followed live on the NASA website. Pin-sharp images of the asteroid Dimorphos were briefly visible, then the screen turned red. Impact – and it was clear: part one of the experiment was a success.

After the first jubilation, the scientific coordinator of the “DART” mission (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), Nancy Chabot, let her enthusiasm run wild: “It was incredible. These images, getting closer and closer. We’ve been working for years for this moment – since 2015. We’ve talked about it again and again – this is how it’s going to be, we’re going to see spectacular pictures. Now my expectations have been exceeded.”

Vending machine meets football stadium

The mission costs around 330 million dollars. Their goal: Finding out whether in the future asteroids hurtling directly towards the earth can be deflected in such a way that they fly past the earth without causing any damage. The cube-shaped “DART” probe, which was now being guided into the asteroid Dimorphos, had an edge length of around two meters and weighed a good 600 kilos – as big as a vending machine hitting an asteroid the size of a football stadium.

The size of the crater caused by the impact of the probe and whether the asteroid hit actually changes its trajectory is to be shown by recordings from various telescopes in the coming days and weeks.

“Telescopes here on Earth and in space are now observing exactly what the rock thrown out by this spectacular collision looks like,” said coordinator Chabot:

“Planetary Defense” as a community project

Physicist Ralph Semmel of Johns Hopkins University expressed the importance of the “DART” project in NASA’s live broadcast: “I have been involved in many space projects and successes. But this is an unprecedented mission .” Chabot adds, also with a view to China, Russia and the European Union:

The European space agency ESA is largely responsible for the long-term continuation of the mission: it is to send its own probe to the asteroid Dimorphos in 2024 in order to further investigate the effects of the current impact.