The DART navigation group at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California used the stars in the image to figure out exactly how DRACO was oriented, supplying the first measurements of how the camera is pointed relative to the spacecraft. With those measurements in hand, the DART team might properly move the spacecraft to point DRACO at things of interest, such as Messier 38 (M38), likewise understood as the Starfish Cluster, that DART recorded in another image on Dec. 10. DART was developed and is handled by Johns Hopkins APL for NASAs Planetary Defense Coordination Office. While neither asteroid poses a risk to Earth, the DART mission will demonstrate that a spacecraft can autonomously browse to a kinetic impact on a reasonably small target asteroid, and that this is a viable technique to deflect a truly harmful asteroid, if one is ever discovered.
Illustration of the DART spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL
Just 2 weeks after launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, NASAs Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft has actually opened its “eye” and returned its first images from space– a significant functional turning point for the spacecraft and DART team.
After the violent vibrations of launch and the extreme temperature shift to minus 80 degrees C in space, scientists and engineers at the mission operations center at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, held their breath in anticipation. Since parts of the spacecrafts telescopic instrument are sensitive to motions as little as 5 millionths of a meter, even a tiny shift of something in the instrument might be very major.
On December 7, after opening the circular door to its telescopic imager, NASAs DART recorded this image of about a lots stars near where the constellations Perseus, Aries, and Taurus intersect. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL
On Tuesday, December 7, the spacecraft popped open the circular door covering the aperture of its DRACO telescopic electronic camera and, to everyones glee, streamed back the very first image of its surrounding environment. Taken about 2 million miles (11 light seconds) from Earth– very close, astronomically speaking– the image reveals about a dozen stars, crystal-clear and sharp against the black background of space, near where the constellations Perseus, Aries and Taurus intersect.
On December 10, DARTs DRACO electronic camera captured and returned this image of the stars in Messier 38, or the Starfish Cluster, which lies some 4,200 light-years away. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL
The DART navigation group at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California used the stars in the image to identify precisely how DRACO was oriented, offering the first measurements of how the video camera is pointed relative to the spacecraft. With those measurements in hand, the DART team might precisely move the spacecraft to point DRACO at items of interest, such as Messier 38 (M38), also called the Starfish Cluster, that DART captured in another image on Dec. 10. Found in the constellation Auriga, the cluster of stars lies some 4,200 light-years from Earth. Purposefully catching images with lots of stars like M38 assists the group identify optical flaws in the images in addition to adjust how definitely brilliant an item is– very important information for precise measurements when DRACO begins imaging the spacecrafts destination, the binary asteroid system Didymos.
DRACO (short for Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation) is a high-resolution camera influenced by the imager on NASAs New Horizons spacecraft that returned the very first close-up images of the Pluto system and of a Kuiper Belt item, Arrokoth. As DARTs only instrument, DRACO will catch pictures of the asteroid Didymos and its moonlet asteroid Dimorphos, in addition to assistance the spacecrafts self-governing assistance system to direct DART to its last kinetic effect.
DART was developed and is managed by Johns Hopkins APL for NASAs Planetary Defense Coordination Office. While neither asteroid presents a risk to Earth, the DART mission will show that a spacecraft can autonomously browse to a kinetic effect on a fairly little target asteroid, and that this is a practical strategy to deflect a genuinely hazardous asteroid, if one is ever discovered.