European component of the AIDA mission to a binary asteroid: Characterization and interpretation of the impact of the DART mission

Patrick Michel (1) , Michael Kueppers (2) , Holger Sierks (3) , Ian Carnelli (4) , Andy F. Cheng (5) , Karim Mellab (6) , Mikael Granvik (7) , Antti Kestilä (8) , Tomas Kohout (7, 9) , Karri Muinonen (7, 10) , Antti Näsilä (11) , Antti Penttilä (7) , Tuomas Tikka (12) , Paolo Tortora (13) , Valérie Ciarletti (14) , Alain Hérique (15) , Naomi Murdoch (16) , Erik Asphaug (17) , Andy Rivkin (5) , Olivier Barnouin (5) , Adriano Campo Bagatin (18) , Petr Pravec (19) , Derek C. Richardson (20) , Stephen R. Schwartz (1, 17) , Kleomenis Tsiganis (21) , Stephan Ulamec (22) , Ozgur Karatekin (23)

1 LAGRANGE - Joseph Louis LAGRANGE
2 ESAC - European Space Astronomy Centre
3 MPS - Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung
4 ESA - Agence Spatiale Européenne = European Space Agency
5 APL - Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory [Laurel, MD]
6 ESTEC - European Space Research and Technology Centre
7 Department of Physics [Helsinki]
8 Aalto University
9 GLI / CAS - Institute of Geology of the Czech Academy of Sciences
10 FGI - Finnish Geospatial Research Institute
11 VTT - VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
12 Reaktor Space Lab
13 Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale [Forli]
14 PLANETO - LATMOS
15 IPAG - Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble
16 ISAE-SUPAERO - Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace
17 LPL - Lunar and Planetary Laboratory [Tucson]
18 DFESTS - Departamento de Fisica, Ingenieria de Sistemas y Teoria de la Señal [Alicante]
19 Ondřejov Observatory of the Prague Astronomical Institute
20 Department of Astronomy [College Park]
21 Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
22 DLR - Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt [Köln]
23 ROB - Royal Observatory of Belgium [Brussels]

The European component of the joint ESA-NASA Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment (AIDA) mission has been redesigned from the original version called Asteroid Impact Mission (AIM), and is now called Hera. The main objectives of AIDA are twofold: (1) to perform an asteroid deflection test by means of a kinetic impactor under detailed study at NASA (called DART, for Double Asteroid Redirection Test); and (2) to investigate with Hera the changes in geophysical and dynamical properties of the target binary asteroid after the DART impact. This joint mission will allow extrapolating the results of the kinetic impact to other asteroids and therefore fully validate such asteroid deflection techniques. Hera leverages technology and payload pre-developments of the previous AIM, and focuses on key measurements to validate impact models such as the detailed characterisation of the impact crater. As such, AIDA will be the first documented deflection experiment and binary asteroid investigation. In particular, it will be the first mission to investigate a binary asteroid, and return new scientific knowledge with important implications for our understanding of asteroid formation and solar system history. Hera will investigate the smallest asteroid visited so far therefore providing a unique opportunity to shed light on the role cohesion and Van der Waals forces may play in the formation and resulting internal structure of such small bodies.

Keywords: Binary asteroid; Near-Earth asteroids; Mining; Planetary defense; Asteroid impact hazards; Kinetic impactor; Asteroid resources utilization

Domains: Space Physics [physics.space-ph]; Astrophysics [astro-ph]

Patrick Michel, Michael Kueppers, Holger Sierks, Ian Carnelli, Andy F. Cheng, et al.. European component of the AIDA mission to a binary asteroid: Characterization and interpretation of the impact of the DART mission. Advances in Space Research, 2018, 62 (8), pp.2261-2272. ⟨10.1016/j.asr.2017.12.020⟩. ⟨insu-01667223⟩