Today, all eyes will be looking up as NASA intentionally crashes the 1260-pound (570-kilogram) DART spacecraft into an orbiting asteroid at high speed. ESA’s Estrack network of ground stations, Europe’s ‘eyes on the sky’, will be particularly focused on the humanmade impactor, keeping track as it cl
The 160-meter diameter Dimorphos asteroid compared to Rome’s Colosseum. In 2022 NASA’s DART spacecraft will collide with the Dimorphos moonlet, in orbit around the larger 780-meter diameter Didymos asteroid, in a bid to change its orbit. In 2026, ESA’s Hera spacecraft will arrive at the Didymos system to perform a close-up survey of the deflected asteroid.
In fact, it is only in the last hour before impact that DART will even be able to distinguish Dimorphos from the larger central asteroid. At that time it will use its sophisticated onboard guidance, navigation, and control system to autonomously maneuver it towards its unknowing target.
ESA’s Deep space antenna in Australia has also been receiving monthly status reports from DART. Such reports are ‘downlinked’ to Earth from the spacecraft and include details on its status, location, and any commands it was given. All of this is crucial information for NASA’s mission control. “It is vital for mission success that there are no gaps in coverage during DART’s terminal phase, and so antennas around the world will be working in unison, backing each other up and filling in any gaps in NASA’s Deep Space Network coverage – we cannot lose the link to DART for a moment,” explains Daniel Firre, ESA’s DART Service Manager.
“Our giant dish in Australia will be in touch with DART as it crashes into Dimorphos. In the last minutes, data will stream in from the DRACO instrument onboard. This data will be used by scientists to estimate the mass of the asteroid, surface type and impact site,” explains Suzy Jackson, Maintenance & Operations Manager for the New Norcia ground station.
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