Tag: Asteroids
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DART asteroid impact created a 10,000-kilometer debris field of boulders
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) mission was a success from the perspective of planetary defense, as it successfully shifted the orbit of an asteroid. But the mission had a scientific element to it, and we’re still sifting through the debris of the collision to determine what the impact tells us about the asteroid. That’s…
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NASA decides not to launch two already-built asteroid probes
Two small spacecraft should have now been cruising through the Solar System, on their way to study unexplored asteroids, but after several years of development and nearly $50 million in expenditures, NASA announced Tuesday the probes will remain locked inside a Lockheed Martin factory in Colorado. That’s because the mission, called Janus, was supposed to…
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Lucy completes its first Earth gravity assist after a year in space
A year after its launch, NASA’s Jupiter Trojan asteroid explorer Lucy has completed its first of multiple Earth gravity assists on its journey to explore nine asteroids. Lucy is a first-of-its-kind mission to visit several Trojan asteroids in Jupiter’s L4 and L5 Lagrange points. The mission’s closest approach to Earth occurred on Oct. 16 at…
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DART probe hits bull’s eye on an asteroid and strikes a blow for planetary defense
An image from NASA’s DART spacecraft shows the asteroid Didymos at lower right and Dimorphos, a moonlet that orbits Didymos, at upper center. (NASA / JHUAPL Photo) Ten months after NASA’s DART spacecraft was aimed at a mini-asteroid, the probe hit the bull’s eye today in a practice round for planetary defense that got an…
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Data from OSIRIS-REx reveals loose surface of asteroid Bennu and “early aging” of asteroids
Recently analyzed data from an asteroid surface-sample collection performed by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission has revealed that asteroid 101955 Bennu’s surface regolith is much looser than previously thought. Had OSIRIS-REx not fired its thrusters to back away from Bennu after collecting its sample, the spacecraft likely would’ve sunk straight into Bennu’s surface. What’s more, additional data…
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Lucy continues to stabilize its solar array before its October flyby
With the first half of 2022 coming to a close, NASA teams are continuing work to resolve the Lucy spacecraft’s solar array issue following its October 2021 launch. Lucy is a first-of-a-kind mission to visit several asteroids in Jupiter’s L4 and L5 Lagrange points. Currently, Lucy is coasting before its first flyby of Earth in…
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Astronomers demonstrate how using the cloud can rev up the race to find asteroids
This visualization shows trajectories of asteroids found using ADAM (in green). Earth’s orbit is represented by a blue arc closer to the sun. (B612 Asteroid Institute / UW DiRAC Institute / Open Space Project) Astronomers have used a cloud-based technique pioneered at the University of Washington to identify and track asteroids in bunches of a…
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Psyche to begin environmental testing ahead of August 2022 launch
As 2022 begins, the ASU (Arizona State University)-led team for the NASA Psyche spacecraft is preparing to conduct thermal vacuum testing in preparation for launch. Psyche is a first-of-a-kind mission set to orbit an M-Type asteroid, scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy booster this August. Following a three-and-a-half-year transit through the inner solar…
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NASA begins DART mission to practice pushing away an asteroid, with an extra push from Aerojet
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launches NASA’s DART asteroid probe from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. (NASA via YouTube) A space probe the size of a school bus is on its way to smash into an asteroid the size of Egypt’s Great Pyramid, directed by thruster systems built by Aerojet Rocketdyne in Redmond, Wash. This…
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NASA, ULA launch historic Lucy mission
NASA and ULA (United Launch Alliance) launched NASA’s next asteroid exploration mission — Lucy — from Florida early Saturday morning, kickstarting the spacecraft’s 12-year journey through the solar system. Liftoff of Atlas V and Lucy occurred at 5:34 AM EDT (09:34 UTC) on Saturday, October 16, from SLC-41 (Space Launch Complex 41) at Cape Canaveral…