API VERSION: 1.2
API SOURCE: NASA/JPL Horizons API

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 Revised: Mar 01, 2024           DART Spacecraft / Sun                     -135
                                https://dart.jhuapl.edu/
                      https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/dart

 The Double Asteroid Redirect Test ("DART") is a NASA mission designed to 
 demonstrate asteroid deflection by kinetic impact. 

 The spacecraft launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket out of Vandenberg Space 
 Force Base in California on 2021-Nov-24 @ 06:21:02 UTC. 
 
 SEC01 was 10 minutes after launch. SECO2 was ~20 minutes after that.
 Spacecraft/booster separation at 07:17:20 UTC.

 BACKGROUND:
  DART's target is the binary asteroid system 65803 Didymos. Not on a path 
  able to collide with Earth and presenting no hazard, the system is 
  composed of two asteroids: the primary Didymos, and its smaller moonlet 
  satellite asteroid, Dimorphos, which orbits Didymos at a distance of 
  about 1.18 km every 11.92 hours.

  DART will autonomously navigate the last 4 hours to impact the moonlet 
  Dimorphos nearly head-on in the fall of 2022, when ~11 million kilometers 
  from Earth, shortening the time it takes to orbit the primary body Didymos 
  by several minutes.

  Since the Didymos system is an eclipsing binary as viewed from Earth, 
  Dimorphos passes in front of and behind Didymos, changing its brightness. 
  Ground-based telescopes on Earth will be able to use this to assess the 
  before/after effect caused by DART's impact at 6.6 km/s, producing data 
  useful to "planetary defense" modeling.

  The LICIACube camera system will be deployed prior to impact and travel 
  past the asteroid roughly three minutes after DART impacts to confirm the 
  impact, document the spread of the resulting dust plume, attempt to capture 
  an image of the newly formed crater and the opposite side of Dimorphos.
 
 KEY EVENT TIMES
  Launch: 24-Nov-2021 06:21:02      UTC
  Impact: 26-Sep-2022 23:14:24.183  UTC (actual)

 PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:
  Main bus 
   - box, dimensions ~ 1.2 x 1.3 x 1.3 meters, from which other structures 
     extend to result in measurements of ~1.8 meters width, 1.9 meters length, 
     2.6 meters in height. 
   - Two large solar panel arrays on each side, each 8.5 m long when deployed

 SCIENCE INSTRUMENTS:
  - DRACO: "Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation" 
     A high-resolution imager derived from the New Horizons LORRI camera to 
     support navigation and targeting, measure size and shape of the target, 
     determine the impact site and geologic context.
  - LICIACube: "Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids"
     Deployed Sep. 12 UTC prior to the DART impact, LICIACube (6U) will capture 
     images of the DART impact, resulting ejecta cloud, and potentially the 
     impact crater on the surface of Dimorphos.

 TRAJECTORY: 
  NOTE: Final reconstructed trajectory 

  The mission-reconstructed DART trajectory can be used as an observing center
  (use '@' prefix ) OR as a target (drop the '@').

  Related objects:

     @  -210       (LICIACube spacecraft)
     @  20065803   (65803 Didymos system barycenter, pre-computed JPL s205) 
     @ 920065803   (Didymos primary center, reconstructed JPL s547)
     @ 120065803   (Dimorphos, satellite of Didymos, reconstructed JPL s547)
 
  To instead numerically integrate the latest JPL ground-based solution for the 
  Didymos system barycenter, request "65803;" (or select from menu list). The
  integrated database version can only be used as a target, not an observing 
  center.

 Name                                Start (TDB)         Stop (TDB)
 ------------------------------   ---------------------- ----------------------
 dart_2021_328_2022_091_rec_v01   2021-Nov-24 07:17:53.0 2022-Apr-01 00:00:00.0
 dart_2022_091_2022_231_rec_v01   2022-Apr-01 00:00:00.0 2022-Aug-19 00:01:09.2
 dart_2022_231_2022_269_rec_v03   2022-Aug-19 00:01:09.2 2022-Sep-26 22:00:00.0
 dart_2022_269_2022_269_rec_v03   2022-Sep-26 22:00:00.0 2022-Sep-26 23:14:45.3
 dart_2022_269_2022_269_spc_v04   2022-Sep-26 23:14:45.3 2022 SEP 26 23:15:33.4
 dart_2022_269_2099_001_imp_v03   2022-Sep-26 23:15:33.4 2099-Jan-01 00:00:99.0
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