1 00:00:01,020 --> 00:00:05,020 [slate] 2 00:00:05,020 --> 00:00:09,000 [slate] 3 00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:13,020 Hi my name is Tom Statler and I work at NASA Headquarters 4 00:00:13,020 --> 00:00:17,020 in Washington, D.C. where I am the Program Scientist for the DART mission. 5 00:00:17,020 --> 00:00:21,020 [slate] 6 00:00:21,020 --> 00:00:25,020 The DART mission is humanity’s first 7 00:00:25,020 --> 00:00:29,020 attempt to change the motion of a celestial body. And the reason 8 00:00:29,020 --> 00:00:33,000 we’re doing this is to test our ability to protect the Earth 9 00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:37,020 from an impact by an asteroid if we should ever discover in the future 10 00:00:37,020 --> 00:00:41,020 an asteroid that is heading on a collision course for Earth. [slate] 11 00:00:41,020 --> 00:00:45,020 [slate] 12 00:00:45,020 --> 00:00:49,000 Planetary defense is about making sure that a rock from space 13 00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:53,000 doesn’t send us back to the Stone Age. And the key parts of planetary defense 14 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:57,000 are first of all finding the asteroids that are potentially 15 00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:01,020 hazardous to the Earth. And we understand where about 16 00:01:01,020 --> 00:01:05,020 40 percent of those asteroids are. We know that no 17 00:01:05,020 --> 00:01:09,020 known asteroid is a danger to the Earth right now. But the 18 00:01:09,020 --> 00:01:13,000 concern is about the asteroids we don’t know about yet. And if we 19 00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:17,020 should ever discover an asteroid that’s on a collision course with Earth, we want to 20 00:01:17,020 --> 00:01:21,000 be able to discover this years in advance so that we can give the asteroid 21 00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:25,020 a push - not to destroy it - we probably wouldn’t be able to do that anyway. 22 00:01:25,020 --> 00:01:29,020 But just to prevent that collision. And the DART mission - the Double Asteroid 23 00:01:29,020 --> 00:01:33,020 Redirection Test is our first test of one way of doing that. 24 00:01:33,020 --> 00:01:37,000 [slate] 25 00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:41,020 [slate] 26 00:01:41,020 --> 00:01:45,020 DART’s going to a binary asteroid - a double 27 00:01:45,020 --> 00:01:49,000 asteroid for two really good reasons. The little asteroid 28 00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:53,000 Dimorphos which is in orbit around the big asteroid Didymos, 29 00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:57,000 that asteroid is about the size of object 30 00:01:57,000 --> 00:02:01,020 that we would tend to be concerned about. The most abundant asteroids are the small ones 31 00:02:01,020 --> 00:02:05,020 and this one about 160 meters across, or about the size of a football stadium, 32 00:02:05,020 --> 00:02:09,000 is large enough that it really would cause severe damage 33 00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:13,020 if it struck the Earth. Now by impacting, by 34 00:02:13,020 --> 00:02:17,020 doing our experiment, a kinetic experiment on the small moonlet asteroid 35 00:02:17,020 --> 00:02:21,000 we’re able to measure our effectiveness in deflecting 36 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:25,020 the asteroid by watching the change in the orbit of the little asteroid around the 37 00:02:25,020 --> 00:02:29,000 big one. It makes measurement a lot more precise and a lot easier to do 38 00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:33,020 with telescopes on Earth. The other reason we’re doing it is that the presence of the 39 00:02:33,020 --> 00:02:37,020 large asteroid there keeps the little one in orbit around it as the pair 40 00:02:37,020 --> 00:02:41,020 go around the sun. So that means that this asteroid which is 41 00:02:41,020 --> 00:02:45,020 not a danger to Earth now, will never become a danger to the Earth 42 00:02:45,020 --> 00:02:49,020 because of anything that we do in the DART mission. [slate] 43 00:02:49,020 --> 00:02:53,000 [slate] 44 00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:57,000 No asteroid that we know of now is a danger 45 00:02:57,000 --> 00:03:01,020 to the Earth. And the Didymos asteroid that DART is going to, 46 00:03:01,020 --> 00:03:05,020 that also is not a danger to the Earth and there’s nothing that we could do to it that will 47 00:03:05,020 --> 00:03:09,000 make it a danger to the Earth. But the possibility of 48 00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:13,000 an asteroid large enough that it could affect huge numbers of people 49 00:03:13,000 --> 00:03:17,020 the likelihood of that happening during our lifetimes 50 00:03:17,020 --> 00:03:21,020 is there. It’s not a high probability, but 51 00:03:21,020 --> 00:03:25,000 we take precautions about low-probability events all the time. It’s a 52 00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:29,000 low probability that your house will burn down for example, but you take precautions 53 00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:33,000 to make sure that doesn’t happen and you have fire insurance. 54 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:37,000 [slate] 55 00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:41,020 Anyone who wants to know about 56 00:03:41,020 --> 00:03:45,020 DART can follow on social media by using the hashtag #DARTMission 57 00:03:45,020 --> 00:03:49,000 or by looking at nasa.gov/dartmission. 58 00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:53,000 [slate] 59 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:57,000 [slate] At the 60 00:03:57,000 --> 00:04:01,000 moment of impact with Dimorphos, DART will be moving at about 61 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:05,020 4 miles per second, that’s about 15,000 miles an hour. 62 00:04:05,020 --> 00:04:09,000 [slate] 63 00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:13,000 [slate] The important thing isn’t how 64 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:17,020 far we move the asteroid, it’s how much we change its speed by. 65 00:04:17,020 --> 00:04:21,020 So we’re going to change the speed of the asteroid by only a few 66 00:04:21,020 --> 00:04:25,020 millimeters per second. It’s far far smaller than walking speed. 67 00:04:25,020 --> 00:04:29,000 But the idea in planetary defense is that if there is a 68 00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:33,000 hazardous asteroid, a dangerous asteroid, and we discover it years in advance, 69 00:04:33,000 --> 00:04:37,020 then a change in its velocity that tiny given time to 70 00:04:37,020 --> 00:04:41,020 add up, given time to work, can make the difference between 71 00:04:41,020 --> 00:04:45,020 an impact on Earth and a safe miss. [slate] 72 00:04:45,020 --> 00:04:49,000 [slate] 73 00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:53,020 NASA’s planetary defense strategy is to do 74 00:04:53,020 --> 00:04:57,020 several things at the same time. The most important one is to 75 00:04:57,020 --> 00:05:01,020 search for asteroids because we only know about 76 00:05:01,020 --> 00:05:05,020 40 percent of the populations of asteroids that could be dangerous 77 00:05:05,020 --> 00:05:09,020 and we need to find that other 60 percent - track them, establish 78 00:05:09,020 --> 00:05:13,000 their orbits around the Sun and figure out which ones could be 79 00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:17,000 dangerous to us now or in the future. Also like in the DART 80 00:05:17,000 --> 00:05:21,020 mission, we want to develop the technologies for deflecting asteroids, 81 00:05:21,020 --> 00:05:25,020 mitigating the effects of the asteroid hazard 82 00:05:25,020 --> 00:05:29,000 and then we want to be working with other federal agencies, state and local 83 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:33,020 governments, and governments world-wide to 84 00:05:33,020 --> 00:05:37,000 understand how the world-wide community can deal with 85 00:05:37,000 --> 00:05:41,000 this issue of planetary defense and protect the entire world. 86 00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:45,020 Share information, transmit information up the chain 87 00:05:45,020 --> 00:05:49,020 to the decision-makers, do what’s necessary to respond to an actual asteroid 88 00:05:49,020 --> 00:05:53,020 danger if there ever is one. 89 00:05:53,020 --> 00:05:57,000 [slate] 90 00:05:57,000 --> 00:06:01,000 DART is carrying a small 91 00:06:01,000 --> 00:06:05,020 CUBESat, it's called LICIACube, it was contributed by the Italian Space Agency and it 92 00:06:05,020 --> 00:06:09,000 job basically is to watch the impact from a little distance away. 93 00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:13,000 It’s riding along on the DART spacecraft and it’s going to be deployed 94 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:17,020 a few days before the kinetic impact. It’s going to maneuver 95 00:06:17,020 --> 00:06:21,000 and offset itself to the side so that it doesn’t run into the same 96 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:25,000 asteroid that DART is running into, and it’s got two cameras on it that are going to 97 00:06:25,000 --> 00:06:29,020 try to first catch the actual impact of DART on camera, 98 00:06:29,020 --> 00:06:33,000 but then more importantly see the 99 00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:37,000 ejecta, the plume of material that’s blown off the surface of the asteroid and how that 100 00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:41,000 develops. If we’re fortunate, we’ll be able to see the impact crater 101 00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:45,000 newly formed by the DART impact. 102 00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:49,000 And then LICIACube will do something that DART can’t do that is fly past 103 00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:53,000 the asteroid, look back, and get the full three dimensional shape 104 00:06:53,000 --> 00:06:57,020 of the object that we hit which we won’t know until we actually get there. 105 00:06:57,020 --> 00:07:01,020 [slate] 106 00:07:01,020 --> 00:07:05,000 [slate] 107 00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:09,020 One of my favorite things about DART is the name. It’s the Double Asteroid Redirection 108 00:07:09,020 --> 00:07:13,020 Test and we’re going to a double asteroid. It’s a binary 109 00:07:13,020 --> 00:07:17,000 asteroid, but we’re also doing a double test. DART is a test 110 00:07:17,000 --> 00:07:21,000 of our ability to actually execute a kinetic impact. Build a spacecraft 111 00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:25,000 that can autonomously direct itself 112 00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:29,000 to a collision with an asteroid. But also we have to test 113 00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:33,020 how a real asteroid responds to that deflection attempt. 114 00:07:33,020 --> 00:07:37,020 Because it’s one thing to take a very expensive spacecraft 115 00:07:37,020 --> 00:07:41,000 and smash it to bits on the surface of an asteroid, but really the question we want to 116 00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:45,000 answer is how effectively do we move an asteroid when we do that. 117 00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:49,717 So DART is a double test on a double asteroid.