The asteroid Dimorphos has been successfully deflected in humanity’s first test of Earth’s planetary defenses.
Stormy weather conditions threaten to delay the launch of the European Hera probe, scheduled for liftoff on Monday, SpaceX said.
The probe will go on a mission to inspect the damage a NASA spacecraft caused to an asteroid when it crashed into it in 2022 in the first test of Earth’s planetary defenses.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) deliberately crashed into the pyramid-sized asteroid Dimorphos about 11 million kilometers (6.8 million miles) from Earth.
The refrigerator-sized spacecraft successfully knocked the asteroid off course, demonstrating that humanity may no longer be helpless against potentially planet-destroying asteroids that could be headed our way in the future. ‘future.
But much about the impact remains unknown, including the extent of the damage caused and the exact state of the asteroid before it was hit.
So the European Space Agency (ESA) says it is sending Hera to the asteroid to conduct a “crime scene investigation” in hopes of discovering how Earth can better repel future asteroids.
The spacecraft is scheduled to lift off at 10:52 a.m. local time (2:52 p.m. GMT) on Monday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, in the US state of Florida.
Dimorphos could turn out to be a pile of rubble held together by gravity.
However, thunderstorms are expected in the launch area. SpaceX said on X Sunday that the weather is currently only 15% favorable for a launch.
If a delay is necessary, a backup launch is planned for Tuesday at 10:46 a.m. local time, SpaceX said.
The mission launch window will remain open until October 27.
Green light after an “incident”
The launch had also faced a potential delay due to an anomaly involving a Falcon 9 rocket during the launch of SpaceX’s Crew-9 astronaut mission late last month.
But on Sunday, the US Federal Aviation Administration gave the green light.
“The absence of a second-stage reentry for this mission adequately mitigates the primary risk to the public in the event of a repeat of the accident that occurred with the Crew-9 mission,” he said in a statement .
The successful DART mission deflected the asteroid.
The mission launch window will remain open until October 27.
Once launched, Hera is expected to fly by Mars next year, then arrive near Dimorphos in December 2026 to begin its six-month investigation.
Dimorphos, which is actually a moon orbiting its big brother Didymos, has never posed a threat to Earth.
After the DART impact, Dimorphos lost material to the point that its orbit around Didymos was shortened by 33 minutes, proof that it was successfully deflected.
Analysis from the DART mission suggested that rather than being a single hard rock, Dimorphos was instead a pile of rubble held together by gravity.
“The consequence is that instead of creating a crater” on Dimorphos, DART would have “completely distorted” the asteroid, Patrick Michel, principal investigator of the Hera mission, said at a press conference.
But there are other possibilities, he said, adding that the behavior of these low-gravity objects is little understood and “defies intuition.”
The mission, costing 363 million euros ($400 million), will be equipped with 12 scientific instruments and two nanosatellites.
© 2024 AFP
Quote: The weather could delay the launch of the mission to study the deviated asteroid (October 7, 2024) retrieved on October 7, 2024 on
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