DART & HERA, NASA/ESA Asteroid Redirection Missions Options

[nprev]

Surprised we didn't already have a thread. DART launched successfully at 0621 UTC today (23 Nov 21). Mission page here, encounter (as in collision) with small satellite of 65803 Didymos in late Sep/early Oct 2022.

[Explorer1]

Wow, those streamers, it looks quite catastrophic! Much more violent than the SCI on Ryugu, as expected!

[vikingmars]

Wow, those streamers, it looks quite catastrophic! Much more violent than the SCI on Ryugu, as expected!

Wow ! Yes: Dimorphos must be made of very loose material and may have been partially destroyed, if not entirely. We will see...

[mcaplinger]

Dimorphos must be made of very loose material and may have been partially destroyed, if not entirely.

Regardless of what the images look like, that seems very unlikely, at least if you believe "Spacecraft Geometry Effects on Kinetic Impactor Missions", Owen et al, https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/ac8932/pdf

However, they did a ton of work and then at the end

It seems likely, based on observations
during the surface sampling in the OSIRIS-REx mission... that the weak material limit is
the most likely case. In fact, if Dimorphos’ surface is as weak
as that observed during the SCI experiment, it could be significantly
weaker than even the weak limit presented here.

I haven't read the paper in enough detail to know if their modeling is truly appropriate or just detailed but in an unrealistic way. But the spacecraft only had a mass of about 500 kg and Dimorphos is of order 10**7 more massive and DART wasn't going that fast.

On the other hand, I was thinking of this:

Han Solo: That's what I'm trying to tell you, kid; it ain't there... It's been totally blown away.

[vikingmars]

Regardless of what the images look like, that seems very unlikely, at least if you believe "Spacecraft Geometry Effects on Kinetic Impactor Missions", Owen et al, https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/ac8932/pdf

However, they did a ton of work and then at the end



I haven't read the paper in enough detail to know if their modeling is truly appropriate or just detailed but in an unrealistic way. But the spacecraft only had a mass of about 500 kg and Dimorphos is of order 10**7 more massive and DART wasn't going that fast.

On the other hand, I was thinking of this:

Han Solo: That's what I'm trying to tell you, kid; it ain't there... It's been totally blown away.

Thank you very much for the paper : I went through it and, now, I'm convinced that Dimorphos has survived the impact and remains quite in good shape. The crater would be very visible and, maybe we will see some secondary impacts not only on Dimorphos, but also on Didymos as well. When the ESA spacecraft will reach the system in December 2026, there will be a lot of impressive images to be seen. Maybe some rocks were also thrown in orbit around Didymos by the impact, building some kind of 'secondary moons', making the system even more interesting to visit

[Explorer1]

When the ESA spacecraft will reach the system in December 2026, there will be a lot of impressive images to be seen. Maybe some rocks were also thrown in orbit around Didymos by the impact, building some kind of 'secondary moons', making the system even more interesting to visit

Hopefully they won't be too big! OSIRIS-Rex sized pebbles are just fine, but big chunks are not a good idea! Though I am sure HERA will be well-prepared.
However, I think the gap in time is large enough for the area to clear naturally; Stardust certainly had no issues revisiting Tempel 1 after 6 years.