European Space Agency ponders asteroid-smashing mission

The European Space Agency (ESA) is contemplating smashing a spacecraft into an asteroid.

Enlarge / The AIDA mission's trajectory, ending with an impact with 65803 Didymos.

EPSC

The proposed mission, called AIDA (for "Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment"), would consist of a pair of spacecraft (sadly, not named Armageddon and Deep Impact) flung at the near-Earth asteroid 65803 Didymos. Didymos is actually a binary object consisting of a large primary mass and much smaller secondary satellite mass. The idea with the AIDA mission, which would take place near the end of 2022, is to accelerate a small kinetic impactor spacecraft to a relative velocity of 6.25 kilometers per second and crash it into the secondary Didymos mass. A second spacecraft will hold off a short distance away and measure the orbital deflection imparted by the more than 300kg impactor spacecraft.

Enlarge / The DART spacecraft, one half of the AIDA mission.

EPSC

The two spacecraft halves of the mission are sponsored by two different agencies. The impactor spacecraft is called DART, for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, and is designed by the US Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. The observer is called AIM, for Asteroid Impact Monitor, and is designed by ESA. DART is a mostly uninstrumented craft, equipped with only a single imager for targeting itself at Didymos, while ESA's AIM spacecraft contains a suite of sensors designed to help it observe Didymos before, during, and after DART's impact.