Achievement of the Planetary Defense Investigations of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission
Creators: name: Chabot, Nancy L.
name: Rivkin, Andrew S.
name: Cheng, Andrew F.
name: Barnouin, Olivier S.
name: Fahnestock, Eugene G.
name: Richardson, Derek C.
name: Stickle, Angela M.
name: Thomas, Cristina A.
name: Ernst, Carolyn M.
name: Daly, R. Terik
name: Dotto, Elisabetta
name: Zinzi, Angelo
name: Chesley, Steven R.
name: Moskovitz, Nicholas A.
name: Barbee, Brent W.
name: Abell, Paul
name: Agrusa, Harrison F.
name: Bannister, Michele T.
name: Beccarelli, Joel
name: Bekker, Dmitriy L.
name: Syal, Megan Bruck
name: Buratti, Bonnie J.
name: Busch, Michael W.
name: Bagatin, Adriano Campo
name: Chatelain, Joseph P.
name: Chocron, Sidney
name: Collins, Gareth S.
name: Conversi, Luca
name: Davison, Thomas M.
name: DeCoster, Mallory E.
name: Deshapriya, J. D. Prasanna
name: Eggl, Siegfried
name: Espiritu, Raymond C.
name: Farnham, Tony L.
name: Ferrais, Marin
name: Ferrari, Fabio
name: F�Hring, Dora
name: Fuentes-Mu�Oz, Oscar
name: Gai, Igor
name: Giordano, Carmine
name: Glenar, David
name: Gomez, Edward
name: Graninger, Dawn M.
name: Green, Simon F.
name: Greenstreet, Sarah
name: Hasselmann, Pedro H.
name: Herreros, Isabel
name: Hirabayashi, Masatoshi
name: Hus�Rik, Marek
name: Ieva, Simone
name: Ivanovski, Stavro L.
name: Jackson, Samuel L.
name: Jehin, Emmanuel
name: Jutzi, Martin
name: Karatekin, Ozgur
name: Knight, Matthew M.
name: Kolokolova, Ludmilla
name: Kumamoto, Kathryn M.
name: K�Ppers, Michael
name: Forgia, Fiorangela La
name: Lazzarin, Monica
name: Li, Jian-Yang
name: Lister, Tim A.
name: Lolachi, Ramin
name: Lucas, Michael P.
name: Lucchetti, Alice
name: Luther, Robert
name: Makadia, Rahil
name: Epifani, Elena Mazzotta
name: McMahon, Jay
name: Merisio, Gianmario
name: Merrill, Colby C.
name: Meyer, Alex J.
name: Michel, Patrick
name: Micheli, Marco
name: Migliorini, Alessandra
name: Minker, Kate
name: Modenini, Dario
name: Moreno, Fernando
name: Murdoch, Naomi
name: Murphy, Brian
name: Naidu, Shantanu P.
name: Nair, Hari
name: Nakano, Ryota
name: Opitom, Cyrielle
name: Orm�, Jens
name: Owen, J. Michael
name: Pajola, Maurizio
name: Palmer, Eric E.
name: Palumbo, Pasquale
name: Panicucci, Paolo
name: Parro, Laura M.
name: Pearl, Jason M.
name: Penttil�, Antti
name: Perna, Davide
name: Petrescu, Elisabeta
name: Pravec, Petr
name: Raducan, Sabina D.
name: Ramesh, K. T.
name: Ridden-Harper, Ryan
name: Rizos, Juan L.
name: Rossi, Alessandro
name: Roth, Nathan X.
name: Ro?Ek, Agata
name: Rozitis, Benjamin
name: Ryan, Eileen V.
name: Ryan, William H.
name: S�Nchez, Paul
name: Santana-Ros, Toni
name: Scheeres, Daniel J.
name: Scheirich, Peter
name: Senel, Cem Berk
name: Snodgrass, Colin
name: Soldini, Stefania
name: Souami, Damya
name: Statler, Thomas S.
name: Street, Rachel
name: Stubbs, Timothy J.
name: Sunshine, Jessica M.
name: Tan, Nicole J.
name: Tancredi, Gonzalo
name: Tinsman, Calley L.
name: Tortora, Paolo
name: Tusberti, Filippo
name: Walker, James D.
name: Waller, C. Dany
name: W�Nnemann, Kai
name: Zannoni, Marco
name: Zhang, Yun
Publisher: name: AAS
Year: 2024

description: NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission was the first to demonstrate asteroid deflection, and the mission's Level 1 requirements guided its planetary defense investigations. Here, we summarize DART's achievement of those requirements. On 2022 September 26, the DART spacecraft impacted Dimorphos, the secondary member of the Didymos near-Earth asteroid binary system, demonstrating an autonomously navigated kinetic impact into an asteroid with limited prior knowledge for planetary defense. Months of subsequent Earth-based observations showed that the binary orbital period was changed by -33.24 minutes, with two independent analysis methods each reporting a 1σ uncertainty of 1.4 s. Dynamical models determined that the momentum enhancement factor, β, resulting from DART's kinetic impact test is between 2.4 and 4.9, depending on the mass of Dimorphos, which remains the largest source of uncertainty. Over five dozen telescopes across the globe and in space, along with the Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids, have contributed to DART's investigations. These combined investigations have addressed topics related to the ejecta, dynamics, impact event, and properties of both asteroids in the binary system. A year following DART's successful impact into Dimorphos, the mission has achieved its planetary defense requirements, although work to further understand DART's kinetic impact test and the Didymos system will continue. In particular, ESA's Hera mission is planned to perform extensive measurements in 2027 during its rendezvous with the Didymos?Dimorphos system, building on DART to advance our knowledge and continue the ongoing international collaboration for planetary defense.