DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test)

Mission Profile

Prime Contractors

Companies that built, launched, or operate this mission. Tickers link to their investor profile.

• Johns Hopkins APL
• SpaceX
• LHXL3Harris (Aerojet Rocketdyne)
• Argotec

Overview

DART, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, was humanity's first full-scale planetary defense demonstration: a deliberately engineered high-speed impact intended to alter the orbit of a small Solar System body. Built and operated by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory for NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office, the roughly 600-kg spacecraft launched on a Falcon 9 in November 2021 and on 26 September 2022 slammed into the 160-m moonlet Dimorphos at approximately 6.1 km/s. The Italian Space Agency's LICIACube, deployed by DART days before impact, captured close-up images of the resulting plume and crater. Ground-based observations confirmed within weeks that the impact had shortened Dimorphos's orbit around the larger asteroid Didymos by approximately 32-33 minutes — far more than the 7-minute minimum threshold NASA had set for the experiment to be considered a success. The result was driven primarily by ejecta recoil ('momentum enhancement'), validating a key parameter for future deflection scenarios. DART proved that, if a hazardous asteroid is detected with sufficient warning time, a kinetic impactor is a viable deflection technique. ESA's follow-on Hera mission will arrive at the system in late 2026 to characterize the impact in detail.

Key Milestones

1. 2021-11-24

   Launch on Falcon 9 from Vandenberg SLC-4E

2. 2022-09-11

   LICIACube CubeSat released from DART

3. 2022-09-26

   DART impacts Dimorphos at 6.14 km/s

4. 2022-10-11

   NASA confirms 33-minute orbital period change

5. 2023-03-01

   Nature publishes initial DART results

Related Missions

Sources

1. NASA — DART
2. Johns Hopkins APL — DART