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[b]Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission[/b] The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission is directed by NASA to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) with support from NASA centers: the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), and Johnson Space Center (JSC). [i][b]Above[/b]: Two different views of the DART spacecraft bus. The DRACO (a tortured acronym that is the Didymos Reconnaissance & Asteroid Camera for OpNav) is based on the LORRI high-resolution imaging instrument from New Horizons. The left view also shows the Radial Line Slots Array (RLSA) antenna with (solar arrays rolled up). The isometric view on the right shows a clearer view of the NEXT-C ion engine.[/i] DART will be the first demonstration of the kinetic impact technique to change the motion of an asteroid in space. The DART mission is in Phase B, led by JHU/APL and managed by the Planetary Missions Program Office at Marshall Space Flight Center for NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office. DART is a planetary defense-driven test of one of the technologies for preventing the Earth impact of a hazardous asteroid: the kinetic impactor. DART's primary objective is to demonstrate a kinetic impact on a small asteroid. The binary near-Earth asteroid (65803) Didymos is the target for DART. While Didymos' primary body is approximately 800 meters across, its secondary body (or "moonlet") has a 150-meter size, which is more typical of the size of asteroids that could pose a more common hazard to Earth. The DART spacecraft will achieve the kinetic impact by deliberately crashing itself into the moonlet at a speed of approximately 6 km/s, with the aid of an onboard camera and sophisticated autonomous navigation software. The collision will change the speed of the moonlet in its orbit around the main body by a fraction of one percent, enough to be measured using telescopes on Earth. [i][b]Above[/b]: DART will be co-manifested on either commercial or military launch to geosynchronous orbit between December 2020 and May 2021 and released. Using the NEXT-C ion thrust engine, DART will spiral out beyond the orbits of the geosynchronous satellites and the Moon to reach an escape point to depart the Earth-Moon system en route to Didymos.[/i] The DART spacecraft will utilize the NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster – Commercial (NEXT-C) solar electric propulsion system as its primary in-space propulsion system. NEXT-C is the next generation system that is based on the Dawn spacecraft propulsion system and was developed at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. By utilizing electric propulsion, DART is able to gain significant flexibility to the mission timeline and widen the launch window, as well as decrease the cost of the of the launch vehicle that gets the mission off Earth and into orbit. NASA's DART spacecraft's launch window range begins in late December 2020 and runs through May 2021. It will intercept Didymos' moonlet in early October 2022, when the Didymos system is within 11 million kilometers of Earth, enabling observations by ground-based telescopes and planetary radar to measure the change in momentum imparted to the moonlet.
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