Part 6/11:
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is poised to be a pivotal experiment in planetary defense. Its goal is to demonstrate that hitting an asteroid with a spacecraft—known as a kinetic impactor—can effectively alter its orbit. The target for this mission is Didymos, a binary asteroid system with a main body and a smaller satellite, Didymos B, which provides an ideal testing ground due to its predictable orbit and manageable size.
Didymos B, about 160 meters across—roughly the height of the Washington Monument—moves around the primary at only about 50 centimeters per second. Precise impact at this scale would be enough to measure orbital changes camera-visible from Earth, thanks to sophisticated navigation systems.