Thanks fieldmarshaldj.
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Posted on 04/14/2019 5:47:31 AM PDT by BenLurkin
The spacecraft will demonstrate the capability to deflect an asteroid by colliding a spacecraft with it at high speed, a technique known as a kinetic impactor.
By slamming the spacecraft into an asteroid at a high speed, scientists hope to push the space rock off course.
DART, which will feature solar electric propulsion, has a date to intercept the asteroid Didymos’ small moon in October 2022.
At that point, the asteroid — or what NASA called a moonlet — will be within 11 million kilometers, or 7 million miles, of Earth.
To achieve the collision, DART will employ an onboard camera and sophisticated autonomous navigation software, according to NASA.
Scientists expect that the collision will change the speed of the moonlet in its orbit around the main body by a fraction of 1 percent, enough to be measured using telescopes on Earth.
The total cost for NASA to launch DART is about $69 million, which includes the launch service and other mission-related costs, space agency representatives said.
DART is scheduled to launch in June 2021 on a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex-4 on the South Base.
(Excerpt) Read more at noozhawk.com ...
Uh oh ..... when it’s not coming at you there’s no reason to push. Action equals opposite and equal reaction or so has been said
Just wanted to be the first to say “What could go wrong here?”
What will be the forecasted velocity of this impactor?
Can NASA create a impact more substantial than a bug hitting a windshield at speed?
Ditto.
If it’s got solar electric propulsion, why not soft land it
and use that solar electric propulsion to gently ease the
asteroid into a useful orbit?
It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature
Just wanted to be the first to say “What could go wrong here?”
...
Nothing more than any other launch.
This is a small rock very far away that’s just going to be nudged a bit.
Send Clint Eastwood
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0186566/
The total cost for NASA to launch DART is about $69 million, which includes the launch service and other mission-related costs, space agency representatives said.
...
SpaceX could be giving them a great price for a dedicated launch. But most likely this is going to be shared with another spacecraft.
Because they want to test the impactor technique.
So what happens if instead of knocking it off course it breaks it into a thousand smaller steroids that are still on the same course?
A ricochet and all life on earth is destroyed.
What happened earlier.....
ICE AGE 5 Short : Scrat In Space !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyfu8pv5nws
*ping*
Thanks fieldmarshaldj.
For that kind of money, we used to expect some real science. This is such a waste. Physics is physics. Colliding objects isnt science.
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