NASA’s DART spacecraft is on monitor to hit a non-threatening asteroid in the present day at 7:14 p.m. ET, in what’s an essential demonstration of a planetary protection technique. But area is tough, and DART, touring at 15,000 miles per hour, may whiz previous the 520-foot-wide object. Here’s what would occur ought to that unfortunate situation come up.

Two broad potential outcomes exist for in the present day’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART (which you’ll be able to watch reside at this hyperlink).

Ideally, the 1,376-pound spacecraft will smash into Dimorphos, the smaller member of the Didymos binary asteroid system, and get annihilated within the course of. DART’s onboard digital camera, DRACO (Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation), shall be capturing one picture every second till the bitter finish, so we should always go from seeing progressively bigger and clearer views of Dimorphos to a clean display screen. The last picture from DRACO shall be taken as DART is about 2.5 seconds from influence. We ought to count on floor controllers to declare “loss of signal,” or “impact confirmed,” adopted by a rapturous cheer from the management room.

Importantly, these verbal confirmations will arrive previous to the visible affirmation, because it takes roughly eight seconds for NASA’s computer systems to course of DRACO photographs upon receipt of sign, as NASA officers defined throughout a press briefing on September 22. So don’t be stunned or alarmed should you proceed to see photographs of Dimorphos instantly after controllers declare a mission success.

More grimly, the $308 million DART probe may miss its goal altogether. This may occur, as getting objects to intersect up to now into deep area is difficult. NASA is utilizing a brand new autonomous navigation system, known as SMART Nav, and the unproven system might want to distinguish Dimorphos from Didymos (sure, the chance exists that DART will hit the incorrect asteroid). Full autonomy within the last moments of the mission is a requirement, as messages from Earth at the moment are taking 38 seconds to succeed in the spacecraft. Finally, a sequence in fact correction maneuvers might want to regularly maintain DART on monitor.

Should DART fly previous Dimorphos, we are able to count on to see DRACO photographs of deep area and no declaration of “loss of signal.” DART, transferring at 4.17 miles per second (6.7 kilometers per second) can’t simply slam the brakes, spin the wheel, and make one other try. Rather, it’ll maintain venturing out deeper into the photo voltaic system. The spacecraft launched in November 2021 and is now 6.8 million miles (11 million km) from Earth.

In the seconds and minutes after a potential miss, “we’re going to sit back down on our seats” and “start preserving all the data about why we missed,” Elena Adams, DART methods engineer, informed reporters throughout the September 22 briefing. This will embrace information gathered by NASA’s Deep Space Network, a worldwide community of ground-based radio antennas that help interplanetary spacecraft missions. The groups will even need to acquire information from LICIACube, a 31-pound (14-kilogram) probe touring alongside DART. The Italian-built probe was dispatched by DART a number of weeks in the past and is provided with two cameras, LUKE and LEIA.

Speaking on the identical briefing, Lindley Johnson, supervisor of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Observations program, echoed Adams’s sentiments, saying that, “in the unlikely event” that DART fails to hit its goal, the groups will attempt to “figure out what happened and why we missed.” The groups will dive into the info and likewise “safe” the spacecraft such that it’s “ready for future use,” he defined. Adams mentioned the bottom groups will need to preserve DART’s hydrazine propellant as a part of these safing operations.

Encouragingly, all wouldn’t be misplaced, because the DART group would search for different potential asteroids for the spacecraft to hit, Adams added. There’s no assure that this may occur, however it could present a glimmer of hope within the occasion the DART mission doesn’t go as deliberate tonight.

Dimorphos poses no threat to Earth, so a failed mission wouldn’t imply that our planet is in any hazard. By smashing DART into the asteroid, scientists are hoping to change its velocity by an element of 1%, which is sufficient to change its orbit. Eventually, a totally developed kinetic impactor may defend Earth from bona fide asteroid threats.

More: Why DART Is the Most Important Mission Ever Launched to Space