Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Team - 2024 Michael Collins Trophy Winner @airandspace | Uploaded March 2024 | Updated October 2024, 13 minutes ago.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission Team was awarded the 2024 Michael Collins Trophy for Current Achievement.
In 2022, NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission successfully demonstrated asteroid deflection using a kinetic impactor spacecraft that intentionally crashed into an asteroid to change its orbit — a scenario that could be used to deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth if one was ever discovered. The team guided the small DART spacecraft 7 million miles away to the asteroid system Didymos and deliberately impacted its 500-foot-wide secondary body Dimorphos. DART’s impact altered Dimorphos’ orbit by 33 minutes, a result 27 times greater than the mission’s goal of 73 seconds. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory built and operated the DART spacecraft and managed the mission for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office.
The Michael Collins Trophy is awarded annually by the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. #CollinsTrophy
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission Team was awarded the 2024 Michael Collins Trophy for Current Achievement.
In 2022, NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission successfully demonstrated asteroid deflection using a kinetic impactor spacecraft that intentionally crashed into an asteroid to change its orbit — a scenario that could be used to deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth if one was ever discovered. The team guided the small DART spacecraft 7 million miles away to the asteroid system Didymos and deliberately impacted its 500-foot-wide secondary body Dimorphos. DART’s impact altered Dimorphos’ orbit by 33 minutes, a result 27 times greater than the mission’s goal of 73 seconds. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory built and operated the DART spacecraft and managed the mission for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office.
The Michael Collins Trophy is awarded annually by the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. #CollinsTrophy
