NASA's DART Captures First Picture of Didymos Asteroid System [LOOK]

NASA released a distant image of the Didymos system, DART's intended target, on Wednesday. The spacecraft will launch into Dimorphos in an effort to change its orbit around Didymos. This protects the Earth from asteroids that could hit the planet in the future.

Imaging Techniques of DART's DRACO

NASA claims that the Didymos system is still quite weak when viewed from this distance, which is roughly 20 million miles from DART. Whether DRACO would be able to see the asteroid was still up in the air according to the navigation camera experts. Yet, the scientists was able to improve it and uncover Didymos by combining the 243 photographs DRACO captured during this observation series.

DRACO is a high-resolution camera inspired by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft imager. It makes use of a CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) imaging sensor and a telescope with an 8.2-inch (20.8-centimeter) aperture.

The photos taken on July 27 provided an image of the the asteroid system as a tiny bright dot against the background of space, according to CNET. The image was posted in NASA's Twitter page.

Although the initial image may not seem like much, it demonstrates that the camera is on track to perform as intended. Elena Adams, a DART mission systems engineer, claims that the image quality is on par with what we could see using ground-based telescopes. However, Adams emphasized that is important to show that DRACO is working properly and can see its target to make any adjustments needed before they begin using the images to guide the spacecraft into the asteroid autonomously.

DART will ultimately rely on its capacity to see and process images of Didymos and Dimorphos to guide the spacecraft toward the asteroid, especially in the final four hours before impact. It will then need to self-navigate in order to successfully collide with Dimorphos without any human assistance.

Julie Bellerose, the DART navigation lead at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said that seeing the DRACO images of Didymos for the first time, they can iron out the best settings for DRACO and fine-tune the software.

Reducing Margin of Error on DART's Trajectory

The DART team will carry out three trajectory correction maneuvers over the next three weeks using observations made every five hours. Each movement will help to significantly lower the margin of error for the spacecraft's needed trajectory to hit. The navigation team will be able to pinpoint the target Dimorphos' location within two kilometers after the final maneuver on September 25, which will take place about 24 hours before impact. DART will thereafter be left to direct itself to its collision with the asteroid moonlet on its own.

As a project of the Planetary Missions Program Office of NASA, Johns Hopkins APL oversees the DART program on behalf of the agency's Planetary Defense Coordination Office.

The first planetary defense test mission, DART, purposefully collides with Dimorphos to gently reorient it in space. If an asteroid is ever discovered, the DART mission will demonstrate that a spacecraft is capable of traveling to a kinetic impact on a relatively small asteroid on its own and that this is a potential way to prevent an asteroid from striking Earth.

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