In the edition of Space, Euronews correspondent Jeremy Wilks reports from the Observatory of the Côte d’Azur in the south of France on a unique mission to deflect an asteroid.
Asteroids have the potential to cause a catastrophe – a small asteroid could wipe out an entire city, while a large one could mean the end for us all.
It’s a threat we’re aware of, and which scientists and engineers are working to overcome.
ESA’s Asteroid Impact Mission and the US Double Asteroid Redirection Test together make up AIDA – the Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA), a pioneering planetary defence test that will attempt to shift the orbit of an asteroid in 2022. Artist Didi Rodan performed a unique depiction of this initiative in sand, a highlight of a recent conference on AIM hosted by the GMV company in Madrid.
La misión AIM (Asteroid Impact Mission), candidata a ser desarrollada, actualmente en fase de diseño preliminar.
AIM se lanzaría en octubre de 2020 y su objetivo es viajar al sistema binario de asteroides Dídimos para estudiar la luna Didymoon. El sistema Didimos cuenta con un cuerpo principal de unos 800 metros de diámetro y una luna que orbita alrededor de este cuerpo principal, de unos 170 metros de diámetro aproximadamente, está luna se la conoce con el nombre de Didymoon. El sistema Didimos se aproximará a 11 millones de kilómetros de la tierra en 2022.
AIM escaneará la pequeña Didymoon en detalle con su cámara VIS, con imágenes térmicas y un radar de alta resolución para construir mapas detallados de su superficie y estructura interior.
La nave principal de AIM llevará al menos tres sondas más pequeñas – el módulo de aterrizaje, Mascot-2, desarrollado por el Centro Aeroespacial Alemán (Mascot-1 ya está volando en la misión Hayabusa-2 de JAXA), así como dos o más CubeSats. Así, AIM pondría a prueba las comunicaciones ópticas y los enlaces inter-satelitales en el espacio profundo, una tecnología que será esencial para la exploración futura del espacio.
Si se aprueba, AIM también será la contribución europea a la misión AIDA, Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment. En 2022, la sonda DART (Double-Asteroid Redirection Test), parte dirigida por la NASA, llegará al sistema binario y se estrellará contra Didymoon a una velocidad de unos 6 km/s.
El impacto será observado por AIM y por sus CubeSats. A través de las imágenes de alta resolución de AIM se evaluará el tamaño y la profundidad del cráter tras el impacto. AIM realizará una segunda fase de mediciones para comparar detalladamente la estructura del objeto, así como su órbita al rededor del asteroide mayor, antes y después del impacto.
The Asteroid Impact Mission (AIM) is a candidate mission currently undergoing preliminary design work.
Launched in October 2020, AIM would travel to a binary asteroid system – the paired Didymos asteroids, which will come a comparatively close 11 million km to Earth in 2022. The 800 m-diameter main body is orbited by a 170 m moon, informally called ‘Didymoon’.
This smaller body is AIM’s focus: the spacecraft would perform high-resolution visual, thermal and radar mapping of the moon to build detailed maps of its surface and interior structure.
The main AIM spacecraft is planned to carry at least three smaller spacecraft – the Mascot-2 asteroid lander, being provided by DLR (Mascot-1 is already flying on JAXA’s Hayabusa-2), as well as two or more CubeSats. AIM would test optical communications and inter-satellite links in deep space, essential technology for future exploration.
If approved, AIM would also be Europe’s contribution to the larger Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment mission: AIDA. In late 2022, the NASA-led part of AIDA will arrive: the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, probe will approach the binary system – then crash straight into the asteroid moon at about 6 km/s.
AIM is intended to be watching closely as DART hits Didymoon. In the aftermath, it will perform detailed before-and-after comparisons on the structure of the body itself, as well as its orbit, to characterise DART’s kinetic impact and its consequences.
The Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) study examines ways to potentially deflect asteroids from trajectories that could lead to them impacting Earth. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory would work with NASA and ESA on the mission, which includes two independent spacecraft: an impactor (to be built by APL for NASA) and an impact monitor (to be built by ESA).
The target of this mission is the binary asteroid system Didymos. The impactor would strike the smaller secondary of Didymos, while the monitor would observe and measure any change in the relative orbit.
