- The mission launched the spacecraft last November and it is expected that on September 26 it will collide with the natural satellite of Didymos and divert its trajectory.

The mission launched in November 2021 and will arrive at its destination later this month. / NASA

First images of the DART mission: NASA's spacecraft to deflect the asteroid Dimorphos already has its objective in sight

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft is getting closer to reaching its goal. Later this month, it will hit Dimorphos, a natural satellite of the asteroid Didymos.

The DART mission was launched into space in November last year and, with it, the US agency intends to test its antimeteorite technology for possible cases that may be of concern to Earth in the future. Specifically, his test on Dimorphos wants to discover the ship's effectiveness in redirecting his movements.

According to a NASA statement, after so many months of flight, the DART team had received information about the light reflected from the asteroid Didymos. After combining 243 images taken by DRACO (Didymos Asteroids and Reconnaissance Camera for Optical Navigation), the space agency has shared its results on its website.

The ship already has the asteroid Didymos and its satellite Dimorphos in sight, against which it will impact. / NASA JPL DART Navigation Team

Elena Adams, a DART systems engineer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, reported that the image quality is similar to what could be obtained with ground-based telescopes: “It is important to show that DRACO is working properly and can see its goal to make any necessary adjustments before we start using the images to guide the spacecraft to the asteroid autonomously.”

Thanks to the information captured by DRACO, professionals on Earth can optimize DART's software and navigation systems.

The goal of DART

NASA estimates that the DART will collide on September 26 with Dimorphos, the natural satellite that orbits the asteroid Didymos. When this happens, the engineers will have to look for facts about how the impact affected the trajectory, analyzing the change in the orbit with respect to the main asteroid.

Your deviation is just an experiment. Neither Dimorphos nor Didymos pose a threat to Earth. However, the test results could be useful in case an asteroid one day poses a real threat to humanity.

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