SXSW 2022
Smashing Into Asteroids: NASA's DART Mission
Description:
Asteroids have been hitting the Earth for billions of years. In 2022, Earth hits back with DART, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, NASA's first space mission to demonstrate a planetary defense technique. The target? A small moonlet in the binary asteroid system Didymos, which poses no threat to Earth. In a scenario ripped from Hollywood blockbusters, scientists and engineers will autonomously direct a spacecraft at an asteroid and smash into it, measuring the orbit change from the ground. DART is a carefully planned experiment that will help determine if kinetic impactor technology—hurtling a spacecraft toward a rocky body at speeds of about 15,000 miles per hour—can serve as a reliable method of asteroid deflection in the event that such a hazard ever heads for the Earth.
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Takeaways
- Are asteroids a real threat to Earth? What planetary defense is and why the planet needs protection from Near Earth Objects in our solar system.
- How DART will deflect an asteroid via kinetic impactor and the key technologies enabling this mission, including an autonomous navigation system.
- Global impact - the international effort involved in planetary defense and the teams performing ground-based observations before and after impact.
Speakers
- Nancy Chabot, Planetary Scientist, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
- Andy Rivkin, Research Astronomer/DART Investigation Team Lead, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
- Elena Adams, DART Mission Systems Engineer, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)
- Thomas Statler, DART Program Scientist, NASA
Organizer
Justyna Surowiec, Public Affairs Officer, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
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