NASA · impactor ended
DART
DART was the first planetary-defence test: in 2022 it rammed the small asteroid Dimorphos and measurably changed its orbit.
- Launch
- 24 November 2021
- End of mission
- 26 September 2022
Trajectory
Trajectory: JPL Horizons vectors (spacecraft -135) every 1 days, projected onto the ecliptic; compressed distance scale.
Mission timeline
- Launch on a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg
- Deliberate impact on Dimorphos, the moon of Didymos
- NASA confirms the impact shortened Dimorphos's orbit
Targets: Didymos
About the mission
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test asked a simple question: can a spacecraft nudge an asteroid by hitting it? Its target was Dimorphos, a roughly 150-metre moonlet orbiting the larger asteroid Didymos, which poses no threat to Earth. Steering itself autonomously in the final hours, DART struck Dimorphos on 26 September 2022 while an Italian CubeSat, LICIACube, photographed the plume. Telescopes on Earth then found that the moonlet's orbit around Didymos had become about half an hour shorter, proving that kinetic impact works.