TOP 5 FACTS ON NASA MISSION ON ASTEROID IMPACT

National Aeronautical & Space Administration (NASA) and the European

Space Agency (ESA) are currently working together on a mission that
will test their abilities to change the course of an asteroid by hitting it
with their spacecraft. The mission is named as Asteroid Impact Mission
(AIM) and it is planned to be launched on October 2022.
AIDA will be the first mission to study an asteroid binary system, as
well as the first to test whether we can deflect an asteroid through an
impact with a spacecraft.
ESA would provide a monitor spacecraft (AIDA) to observe the collision
and measure the deflection, while NASA spacecraft (DART) would
provide the impactor -which would be destroyed on impact.
Both AIM and DART have been approved for a Phase A/B1 study,
started in February 2015 for fifteen months.

1. ASTEROID (Didymos) TRAVELING TOWARDS EARTH

A 170 m moon, informally called Didymoon, orbits the 800 m

diameter main body of asteroid called Didymos. Didymoon is now
towards earth and is expected to come a comparatively close 16
million km to Earth in 2022.
Ground-based observations show that Didymos is probably a common
'chondrite', or stony asteroid formed of dust from the primitive solar
system. At present, Didymoon's mass and density are unknown.
So, AIM will measure Didymoon's mass shape, density and dynamic
properties and map the asteroid's surface at visible and infrared
wavelengths, as well as using radar to probe beneath the surface
before its impact.

2. TWO SPACECRAFTS IMPACTS WITH ASTEROID

A pair of spacecraft, the ESA-led Asteroid Impact Mission (AIM) and

NASA-led Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), will rendezvous with

the Didymos asteroid and its small natural satellite, known informally
as 'Didymoon.
Following a period of study of both asteroids and detailed mapping of
Didymoon by AIM, DART will impact with Didymoon and AIM will assess
the mission's effectiveness in diverting the moon's orbit around
Didymos.
ESAs AIM rendezvous spacecraft will Orbiter payload to characterize
Didymos Dynamical system and study impact results characterization.
Also it undertakes asteroid proximity operations, deep-space optical
communication demonstration.
NASA DART interceptor will measure asteroid deflection to within 10%
thereby returning high-resolution images of target prior to impact. It
provides autonomous guidance with proportional navigation to hit
center of 150-meter target body with leverage space-based missile
technology
So, AIM will be watching closely as DART hits Didymoon. In the
aftermath, it will perform detailed before-and-after comparisons on the
structure of the body itself, as well as its orbit, to characterize DARTs
kinetic impact and its consequences.

3. IMPORTANCE OF AIM MISSION

Till 2013, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL Sentry System) have calculated
that there was a 1 in 63,000 chance of an impact by a asteroid. But the
chances of potential impact on earth by asteroids are increased to 1 in
14,000 from 2015. This created a awareness meet between U.S and
European mission control departments, which started the Interim for
AIDA mission on May 2012.
The Didymos moon is nearly three times larger than the body thought
to have caused the 1908 Tunguska impact in Siberia, the largest
impact in recorded history. An equivalent asteroid striking Earth would
be well into the city-killer class, leaving a crater of at least 2.5 km
across and causing serious regional and climate damage.
The 2013 Chelyabinsk airburst, whose shockwave struck six cities
across Russia, is thought to have been caused by an asteroid just 20 m
in diameter.

The AIDA mission will address many technological and science goals
serving several communities including spacecraft operations and
navigation technological advancement, planetary defense, impact and
collisional physics, planetary science and human exploration.

4. AN HISTORIC EVENT

DARTs shifting of Didymoons orbit will mark the - first time humanity
has altered the dynamics of the Solar System in a measurable way.
It will also give us a baseline for planning any future planetary defense
strategies. We will gain insight into the kind of force needed to shift the
orbit of any incoming asteroid, and better understand how the
technique could be applied if a real threat were to occur.
A similar collision was achieved back in 2005, when NASAs Deep
Impact spacecraft shot a copper impactor into asteroid Tempel 1. But
the Didymos moon is several tens of times smaller than Tempel 1, so
much greater precision will be required to strike it and the possibility
of altering its orbit should be correspondingly higher.

5. ALTERNATE PLAN TO PREVENT ASTEROID IMPACT ON EARTH

The space agency wants astronauts to visit the redirected asteroid by

2025, to meet an exploration deadline set by the White House. In
2010, President Barack Obama directed NASA to get people to a nearEarth asteroid by 2025 and then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid2030s.
Once if the AIM mission fails to alter the course of Asteroid, there is a
alternative manned mission, which will be executed immediately. The
second mission will be involving method called a gravity tractor. This
works by having a spacecraft hover next to the asteroid and use the
gravitational attraction between the spacecraft and the asteroid to
slowly pull it off course. This is a much slower process than a kinetic
impactor, but gives much better control of the deflection. Gravity
tractor deflection is to be demonstrated as part of NASA's Asteroid
Redirect Mission. Here's an overview of ARM from Dr. Michele Gates,
who currently leads the

project: http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/3-20150728-GatesNAC-HEO-Committee-rev5.pdf