The Insane Engineering of the DART Mission — Transcript

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1. 0:00on the 26th of September 2022 a 570
2. 0:05kilogram spacecraft the size of a
3. 0:08refrigerator rammed into an asteroid at
4. 0:11six kilometers per second launched
5. 0:13aboard the fossil fueled powered Falcon
6. 0:159 the dinosaurs finally clapped back
7. 0:1966 million years after the asteroid that
8. 0:22ended the dinosaurs an unsuspecting
9. 0:25asteroid was struck with an impact
10. 0:27equivalent of three tons of TNT and we
11. 0:30caught it all on film this mission is
12. 0:34perhaps the most important experiment
13. 0:36NASA has ever performed data and
14. 0:39information that could one day save us
15. 0:42from the same fate as the dinosaurs
16. 0:45the asteroid we struck dimorphos is 160
17. 0:49meters in diameter much smaller than the
18. 0:5210 kilometer wide asteroids that
19. 0:54exterminated the dinosaurs all those
20. 0:56years ago but large enough to unleash
21. 0:59over 300 megatons of energy if it
22. 1:02collided with Earth six times more
23. 1:05powerful than the most powerful nuclear
24. 1:07weapon ever used
25. 1:09in the week since scientists have been
26. 1:12studying the results calculating how
27. 1:14effective our first asteroid redirection
28. 1:16test was however the work that went into
29. 1:20this mission Far extends the last month
30. 1:23of scientific study for years scientists
31. 1:26and Engineers carefully planned which
32. 1:29asteroid to hit how to hit it and how to
33. 1:32confidently and quickly measure the
34. 1:34effect of the Collision
35. 1:36to understand the achievement of the
36. 1:38dart Mission let's dive into the
37. 1:40engineering and physics of its Planet
38. 1:43defense mission
39. 1:50the dart spacecraft itself hosted no
40. 1:53scientific instruments designed to be a
41. 1:56low-cost spacecraft with just the tools
42. 1:58it needed to complete its Mission
43. 2:00cameras to spot its Target star trackers
44. 2:03to navigate through space a propulsion
45. 2:05system to direct it toward its Target
46. 2:08antenna systems to speak with Earth and
47. 2:11an onboard computer whose software has
48. 2:13its roots in military missile
49. 2:15Technologies
50. 2:17however darsh did release a small
51. 2:19italian-made spacecraft designed to
52. 2:22record the Collision giving us this
53. 2:24footage showing a massive plume of
54. 2:27debris being ejected from the asteroid
55. 2:29on impact
56. 2:31the Falcon 9 rocket did the majority of
57. 2:33the work in directing dirt toward its
58. 2:36Target dimorphos this was a unique
59. 2:38Target chosen for a very important
60. 2:41reason
61. 2:42it's a moonless a tiny Moon orbiting the
62. 2:46larger asteroid didimos
63. 2:48dart's camera gave us a glimpse of
64. 2:50didimos as it sailed by at a Breakneck
65. 2:53speed closing down the remaining 920
66. 2:57kilometers in just two and a half
67. 2:59minutes it computed and adjusted its
68. 3:02trajectory using hydrazine thrusters
69. 3:04guiding the spacecraft to a head-on
70. 3:07impact with the moonlit in these final
71. 3:09moments dirt shut down its thrusters
72. 3:12allowing the camera to take clear images
73. 3:15of its impending doom and giving us a
74. 3:19clear picture of the rock we just
75. 3:20obliterated 11 million kilometers away
76. 3:24so why this rock in particular
77. 3:28there are countless asteroids orbiting
78. 3:30the Sun however in order to study the
79. 3:33results of impact we need a specific
80. 3:36kind of asteroid
81. 3:38first dimorphos was passing close to
82. 3:41Earth passing by at 11 million
83. 3:44kilometers at the time of impact
84. 3:46we have tracked dimorphos and have
85. 3:48confident predictions of where the
86. 3:50asteroid is going to be at any given
87. 3:53point in time this allowed us to choose
88. 3:55an optimal window for Collision our
89. 3:58model showed that on October 4th 2022
90. 4:01the asteroid would be at its closest
91. 4:04approach for the next 40 years the next
92. 4:07time it would be this close to Earth be
93. 4:102062 this was the perfect opportunity
94. 4:13however we struck it a week early
95. 4:16because the asteroid would be at its
96. 4:19brightest to us at its closest approach
97. 4:22allowing us to better observe the
98. 4:24results of the Collision
99. 4:27this is the next reason this asteroid
100. 4:29was chosen the goal of the double
101. 4:32asteroid redirection test was to
102. 4:35redirect an asteroid with just enough
103. 4:37Force to change its trajectory by a
104. 4:40marginal amount enough to avoid a
105. 4:42collision with Earth a change of just
106. 4:45one percent could be enough to avoid a
107. 4:47catastrophe But Here Lies The Dilemma
108. 4:50for scientists how do we measure such a
109. 4:53small change in trajectory of an object
110. 4:5611 million kilometers away even the
111. 4:59footage from a spacecraft near the
112. 5:01Collision is not much to go off
113. 5:04confidently measuring an impact with an
114. 5:06asteroid orbiting the Sun would take
115. 5:09years as we'd need to measure multiple
116. 5:11orbits to assess the differences before
117. 5:14and after the impact instead scientists
118. 5:18turned to Binary systems for answers
119. 5:20there are systems of asteroids where one
120. 5:23smaller moonless orbits a larger
121. 5:25asteroid all we need to know is that we
122. 5:28changed the velocity of a moving rock in
123. 5:30space it doesn't matter if it's orbiting
124. 5:33the Sun or orbiting another rock however
125. 5:36not any binary system would make this
126. 5:39experiment feasible it is essential that
127. 5:42we can measure the effectiveness of the
128. 5:44crash from Earth for this the orbiting
129. 5:47moonlit should have an eclipsing path
130. 5:49meaning that viewed from Earth it would
131. 5:52pass in front of and behind the asteroid
132. 5:55during its orbit the light reflecting
133. 5:57from these two asteroids that we see
134. 6:00here on Earth appears as a single point
135. 6:02of light and each time dimorphos passes
136. 6:06in front of didimos that light dims
137. 6:09using sensitive earth-based telescopes
138. 6:11we have timed these patterns to measure
139. 6:14the orbit of dimorphos at 11 hours 55
140. 6:17minutes using these same techniques we
141. 6:20can measure the change in orbit
142. 6:23dimorphos is only visible from the
143. 6:25southern hemisphere so NASA reserved
144. 6:28time on telescopes located in Chile
145. 6:30South Africa Australia and New Zealand
146. 6:33joining the earth-based telescopes Webb
147. 6:36and Hubble were also used to image the
148. 6:39asteroids at the time of impact of
149. 6:41course to achieve all this we first
150. 6:43needed to hit the asteroid that was no
151. 6:46easy feat the asteroid was too far away
152. 6:49to manually direct the spacecraft there
153. 6:52would be a lag of 1.5 minutes
154. 6:55six kilometers per second a lag this
155. 6:57large would help the spacecraft travel
156. 6:59over 540 kilometers before receiving
157. 7:02instructions when trying to hit a Target
158. 7:05only 160 meters in diameter lags like
159. 7:09this required an autonomous navigation
160. 7:11system
161. 7:12the spacecraft was loaded with the
162. 7:14camera attached to a small 20 centimeter
163. 7:16wide telescope and circuitry no more
164. 7:19powerful than that of a PlayStation 1.
165. 7:22every second it would take a picture and
166. 7:24calculate the thrust needed to stay on
167. 7:26chorus working very similarly to visual
168. 7:29Guidance Software used in military
169. 7:31applications like the javelin missile
170. 7:34Dart used 12 directional thrusters to
171. 7:38hit the small dim moonless
172. 7:40dirt was also equipped with the next
173. 7:43generation of ion thrusters next C which
174. 7:46is three times more powerful than NASA's
175. 7:48previous generation ion Thruster inster
176. 7:51ion thrusters are highly efficient
177. 7:54accelerating heavy ions of xenon to
178. 7:57extreme speeds of 40 kilometers per
179. 7:59second using an electromagnetic field 10
180. 8:03times faster than a traditional rocket
181. 8:05engine
182. 8:06these ion thrusters were powered by new
183. 8:09specially developed lightweight solar
184. 8:11cells that deploy from a roll called a
185. 8:15roll out solar array or Rosa this solar
186. 8:19array was successfully tested on the ISS
187. 8:21in 2017 although in a strangely
188. 8:25hilarious video the arrays were gently
189. 8:28ejected from the ISS because there was a
190. 8:31fault in retracting them at the end of
191. 8:34the test part of the solar array was
192. 8:37also used to demonstrate a new solar
193. 8:39collector technology that would
194. 8:41concentrate sunlight on high efficiency
195. 8:43panels increasing their power deep in
196. 8:46our solar system where solar radiation
197. 8:49rapidly drops off thanks to the inverse
198. 8:52Square law
199. 8:53a technology that would be extremely
200. 8:55useful for powering an ion Thruster
201. 8:57allowing us to reach asteroids further
202. 9:00from Earth and giving us a better chance
203. 9:02of changing their trajectory early these
204. 9:05systems were successfully tested on dirt
205. 9:08however Ed Reynolds the DART program
206. 9:11manager at APL revealed in a post-impact
207. 9:14briefing that the next SEA Thruster was
208. 9:17actually only tested for a short
209. 9:19two-hour period during flight an
210. 9:23unexpected issue arose that could have
211. 9:25cost 100 amps of current to run through
212. 9:28the Thruster which it had not been
213. 9:30tested to withstand forcing the team to
214. 9:33make a decision to not continue testing
215. 9:36the Thruster instead relying completely
216. 9:39on the hydrazine thrusters to focus on
217. 9:41the primary asteroid redirect Mission
218. 9:43and while this is disappointing finding
219. 9:47a new issue is an important part of the
220. 9:49testing process and it didn't impact the
221. 9:52mission at all
222. 9:53the mission itself was a massive success
223. 9:56after just two weeks of gathering data
224. 9:59NASA announced on October 10th the
225. 10:01effects of the Collision
226. 10:03striking only 17 meters from the
227. 10:06asteroid Center there's practically
228. 10:08struck the bullseye not just changing
229. 10:11its orbit by one percent but by a
230. 10:14relatively massive 4.5 percent reducing
231. 10:18its orbit around didimos by 32 whole
232. 10:21minutes down from 11 hours 55 minutes to
233. 10:2611 hours 23 minutes
234. 10:28this is a mission worth celebrating we
235. 10:32are now confident we can deflect an
236. 10:34asteroid like dimorphos if the need
237. 10:37arises Beyond Moon missions Beyond Mars
238. 10:40missions beyond all the understanding
239. 10:43NASA and other space agencies provide us
240. 10:46this Mission has clear understandable
241. 10:49importance we now have data and tools in
242. 10:54our Arsenal to protect our planets we
243. 10:57are now a little safer on this little
244. 10:59rock floating through the vast
245. 11:02mysterious expanses of space
246. 11:04this mission was primarily designed to
247. 11:07gather data on how a collision like this
248. 11:09would affect the orbit of an asteroid
249. 11:11there were many questions to be answered
250. 11:14about the geological composition of the
251. 11:17asteroid and how that would affect the
252. 11:19transfer of momentum from dirt to
253. 11:21dimorphos especially as most asteroids
254. 11:24of this size are simply piles of rubble
255. 11:27that have coalesced due to gravity over
256. 11:29time and aren't a single solid Mass
257. 11:32making exact predictions on the
258. 11:34Collision physics and how the orbit
259. 11:36would be affected very difficult
260. 11:38basic calculations of gravitational
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