By 
July 2nd, 2017
Artist concept of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft. DART, which is moving to preliminary design phase, would be NASA’s first mission to demonstrate an asteroid deflection technique for planetary defense.
Credits: NASA/JHUAPL
NASA is moving forward on the first-ever mission to demonstrate an asteroid deflection technique for planetary defense – the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission. But there are a few hurdles to overcome.
While current law directs the development of the DART mission, DART is not identified as a specific budget item in the Administration’s Fiscal Year 2018 budget.
As an element of the joint NASA/European Space Agency’s Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) mission, DART would be the kinetic impactor while the ESA Asteroid Impact Mission (AIM) provides assessment capabilities.
However, ESA’s AIM has yet to be approved.
Target body
The target for DART is an asteroid that will have a distant approach to Earth in October 2022 and then again in 2024. The asteroid is called Didymos – Greek for “twin” – because it’s an asteroid binary system that consists of two bodies: Didymos A, about one-half mile (780 meters) in size, and a smaller asteroid orbiting it called Didymos B, about 530 feet (160 meters) in size. DART would impact only the smaller of the two bodies, Didymos B.
The European Space Agency’s Asteroid Impact Mission is joined by two triple-unit CubeSats to observe the impact of the NASA-led, and once named, Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology (DART) probe with the secondary Didymos asteroid, planned for late 2022.
Credit: ESA – ScienceOffice.org
ESA’s AIM would observe the asteroid before impact to determine its properties and study the effect of the collision on the double asteroid system Didymos.
If the ESA/AIM mission is not available, telescopes and radar would assess Didymos pre impact and following the collision.
NASA approval
DART is being designed and would be built and managed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. DART is moving from concept development to preliminary design phase following NASA’s approval on June 23.
The DART Mission is being developed under the auspices of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office. NASA established this office to coordinate planetary defense related activities across NASA, and coordinate both US interagency and international efforts and projects to address and plan response to the asteroid impact hazard.
Published on June 30, 2017, go to this animation showing the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission that would demonstrate how a kinetic impact could potentially redirect an asteroid as part of NASA’s planetary defense program:
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