SpaceX F9 - DART - SLC-4E

[jackmott]

Speed relative to what?

Man sometimes my kids ask questions about speed and space and it is like "ok children, sit down for a 12 hour lecture..."

 

[ecarfan]

hmm.. relative to this DART probe? Sun?

There is a diagram on this NASA mission page that will help you visualize how DART approached and impacted the asteroid.

 

[Electroman]

There is a diagram on this NASA mission page that will help you visualize how DART approached and impacted the asteroid.

Thank you. That page had a lot of good information. To answer some of my questions.

It was head on collision. And the distance between them was a mere 0.7 miles

Currently, the orbital period of Dimorphos around Didymos is 11 hours and 55 minutes, and the separation between the centers of the two asteroids is 1.18 kilometers (0.73 miles). The DART spacecraft will impact Dimorphos nearly head-on, shortening the time it takes the small asteroid moonlet to orbit Didymos by several minutes.

 

[Electroman]

Interestingly when the DART probe had neared the asteroid system, at that time had the moonlet been on the far side of the parent asteroid (thereby parent asteroid occulting the moonlet from the probe), then the probe could not have crashed into moonlet. Pretty sure NASA calculated the orbital period and position of the moonlet days or weeks before the impact and planned for it.

 

[Electroman]

A very detailed analysis of the whole project going into finer details of the object and its trajectory is here:

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART): Planetary Defense Investigations and Requirements​