Italy-made LICIACube to accompany NASA's DART spacecraft for snapping collision: Reports

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test or DART mission, which will evaluate methods of averting a potentially hazardous asteroid from colliding with Earth, is nearing its launch. The spacecraft will take off on November 24 at 11:50 am aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. However, this probe of NASA will not be alone in its venture as it will be accompanied by LICIACube, Italy's first deep-space mission. 

LICIACube, also called the Light Italian CubeSat, will follow the DART spacecraft all the way to its destination, the Didymos asteroid system, as it has been assigned the job to act as eyes and ears of scientists here on Earth. The spacecraft will create a real photoshoot of the impact when NASA's probe collides with the asteroid and beam the data back to the scientists. Where the DART spacecraft is the size of a bus, LICIACube is relatively smaller as it weighs only 14 kilograms and is equipped with two optical cameras- LUKE (LICIACube Unit Key Explorer) and LEIA (LICIACube Explorer Imaging for Asteroid), reported Space.com 

The need for LICIACube emerged as DART also has a powerful camera, called DRACO, but it will be destroyed after the spacecraft crashes into the asteroid, leaving scientists only with LUKE and LEIA. Built to last six months, the Italian probe will separate from the DART spacecraft ten days before the impact and take pictures of the remnants of the collision. 

A mission to develop planetary defense

DART mission will be the first test of the kinetic impactor technique, which entails delivering one or more huge, high-speed spacecraft into an asteroid's path in space to alter its trajectory. Under this mission, the spacecraft will be sent approximately 109.4 crore kilometres away from Earth where it will collide with Dimorphous, a small moonlet that revolves around a larger asteroid named Didymos, at a speed of 24,140 kmph. Several astronomers and scientists have warned that asteroids will be one of the many natural phenomenons that might cause the most damage if we do not have a proper defence system against them. If the mission yields positive results, this technology can be used to divert hazardous asteroids that might pose existential threats to our planet.

Image: Twitter/@ASI_spazio