Space, impact between NASA’s Dart probe and the asteroid Dimorphos

An increasingly tight countdown for NASA’s Dart mission that will impact the asteroid Dimorphos tonight to divert its ‘path’ while the satellite of the Italian Space Agency LiciaCube, the only one involved in the program, is already releasing the first 14 million images of kilometers from Earth. The live broadcast of the first planetary defense experiment is broadcast by NASA, ESA and ASI and is scheduled for 1.14 Italian time on Tuesday 27 September. The idea of ​​the mission is to test the ability to deflect a possible danger of ‘collision’ between the Earth and an asteroid and Dimorphos, which is only 160 meters in diameter, is a perfect target. In this mission Italy has a leading role with the Italian Space Agency and the Argotec company which have already released the first photos taken by LiciaCube, the only satellite involved in NASA’s planetary defense mission, Dart. In this first Italian mission in deep space – which is broadcast live on Nasa Tv, Esa Tv and Asi Tv – during the approach phases in preparation for the fly-by, when LiciaCube will become the only witness of the impact between the Dart probe and Dimorphos, for the Italy of space there is a “small great record” as underlined by the Italian Space Agency. The first photos released by LiciaCube are in fact “the first photos taken by an Italian satellite 14 million km away and never an Italian mission had gone so far” says Asi. LiciaCube, ASI’s satellite, was created in the Turin laboratories of Argotec and witnesses “a maneuver never tried before”. Asi and Argotec engineers are in fact ready for the final stages of this historic mission. The LiciaCube project is managed by the Italian Space Agency, with the industrial contractor Argotec and a scientific team from the National Institute of Astrophysics, Politecnico di Milano, University of Bologna, University of Naples Parthenope and the ‘Nello Carrara’ Institute of Applied Physics of the National Research Council (Cnr-Ifac).