Russian scientist assessed the Americans’ night attack on an asteroid: “The idea is ours”

The head of the Center for Planetary Defense told how the Russian Federation counters threats from space

While everyone was sleeping in Russia, on Tuesday night, NASA carried out the world’s first experiment to change the trajectory of an asteroid – DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test). The idea is not new – to hit a flying “pebble”, presumably flying to the Earth, so that it changes its trajectory and flies past.

Naturally, a double asteroid, consisting of the main body – Didim (780 m in diameter) and its “moon” – Dimorpha (160 m), flying from us millions of kilometers, did not threaten the Earth in any way. But after all, it is necessary to work out the technology on something!

A special automatic spacecraft for impact on Dimorph was developed by specialists from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and several other NASA research centers. It was launched by a Falcon 9 launch vehicle from the Vandenberg launch site on the night of November 24, 2021. Having flown about 11 million kilometers, by September 27 it reached its goal, that is, it crashed into an asteroid at a speed of 6.6 km / s. This happened at about 2:15 Moscow time.

The moment of impact was recorded by the onboard DRACO camera, after which the spacecraft, which weighed 550 kg, completely collapsed. According to experts, he produced an explosion equal in strength to 1.5-2 tons of TNT. The light Italian satellite LICIACubeSat was supposed to capture the attack from the side (it separated from the device shortly before the collision).

A little later, this kid will send to Earth a photo of the impact crater and other Dimorph parameters. Scientists expect after the impact to reduce the time of its revolution around Didyma by 10 minutes, but they will also consider a change in flight speed by 73 seconds as a success.

“This is a mission and a demonstration of technology that may one day save our planet,” said NASA deputy head, former astronaut Pamela Melroy.

By the way, in 2024 the European Space Agency intends to send the Hera mission to the same pair of asteroids.

We decided to ask Anatoly ZAYTSEV, head of the Center for Planetary Protection, if there are similar programs in Russia.

“Despite the fact that we were among the first to develop this idea of ​​a kinetic impact on a potentially dangerous asteroid, back in the 1990s, alas, things did not go further than this,” says Anatoly Vasilyevich. – I then worked in NPO them. Lavochkin, our Center was later created. We also planned to create an impact vehicle and send it to the asteroid together with an observer apparatus, which, after the destruction of the main spacecraft, was supposed to transmit to Earth images of the crater formed as a result of the explosion.

In addition to the kinetic impact, our nuclear scientists worked out (I think that the United States also did not lag behind us) and a nuclear strike on an asteroid, which could be of three types. The first – “soft impact” – an explosion near the surface of an asteroid, which would cause a strong evaporation of the surface layer of a celestial body and, accordingly, a change in its trajectory. The second is a “surface impact” and the third is a “deep impact” when the projectile first penetrated deep into the asteroid.

It is very sad that such a large country as ours does not have its own program to protect against space objects. We don’t even observe them properly: less than 0.1% of the world’s “harvest” per year, that is, 2-3 asteroids, while 2-3 thousand are discovered abroad. Over the past 30 years, progressive countries have collectively organized 12 expeditions to asteroids and comets. We – think about it – did not have a single one!