asteroid – Politecnico di Milano – Progress in Research

Research by Politecnico protagonist of DART impactor launch

Posted on 07/03/202307/04/2023 by admin

Divert the trajectory of an asteroid on a collision course with the Earth by means of a controlled impact at full speed with a space probe. This was the challenge of the DART mission (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) by NASA, successfully completed on 26^th September 2022, in which the Politecnico was directly involved as part of the scientific team.

The first scientific results on the DART Mission have been published in the journal Nature in three different articles, co-authored by the researcher Fabio Ferrari from the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology at the Politecnico.

The article ‘Successful Kinetic Impact into an Asteroid for Planetary Defense’ describes the successful test of kinetic impact technology on the asteroid Dimorphos, demonstrating that it is an effective technique for planetary defence against possible asteroid threats.

The study ‘Ejecta from the DART-produced active asteroid Dimorphos’ describes the observations made using the Hubble Space Telescope on the material ejected by the impact of DART with the asteroid Dimorphos.

Finally, the effectiveness of the kinetic impact of a satellite in avoiding a potential collision with the Earth is demonstrated in ‘Momentum Transfer from the DART mission Kinetic Impact on Asteroid Dimorphos’ co-authored by the professor of Flight Mechanics at the Politecnico, Michèle Lavagna.

DART is a historic moment for space exploration: it is not only the first planetary defence test, but it is also the first time we visit a binary asteroid (a system where two asteroids orbit around a common centre of gravity) and where we have the opportunity to observe how an asteroid can react to an external stress. This has allowed us – and will allow us again in the coming months – to study the structure and evolutionary history of these celestial bodies, so close to us but still barely known.
Fabio Ferrari

Read the three articles

Successful Kinetic Impact into an Asteroid for Planetary Defense

Momentum Transfer from DART Mission Kinetic Impact on Asteroid Dimorphos

Ejecta from the DART-produced active asteroid Dimorphos

LICIACube witnessed NASA/DART impact test with asteroid

Posted on 27/09/202230/09/2022 by admin

Along night time, September 26-27, the NASA DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft intentionally impacted, at almost 25000 km/h, the asteroid Dimorphos, the smaller body in the Didymos binary asteroid system.
DART represents the first attempt to experimentally verify the humanity capability to deflect potentially Earth-threatening asteroid by driving a space probe to crash into the celestial body at maximum relative speed to shift the natural body orbit.

A crucial role in the mission is played by LICIACube (Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids), the small spacecraft entirely Italian-made, which will go down in history as the first European CubeSat to fly in deep space, far from our protected terrestrial environment.

After being released by DART, last September 12, LICIACube flew by the asteroid few tens of km far, witnessing DART’s impact and avoiding the cloud of generated fragments, taking and recording images at the highest resolution possible, thanks to its two on-board cameras: the newly formed crater and the ejecta plume are targeted, supplying unique and fundamental data to scientists about the small celestial body features and the occurred impact dynamics.
The ASTRA research group researchers, led by professor Michèle Lavagna, Giovanni Zanotti, Michele Ceresoli and Andrea Capannolo from the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology gave a key contribution to this futuristic mission success.

During the past months, they hard worked in defining the LICIACube trajectory from the deployment until the asteroid flyby, while during the last weeks, after LICIA release from DART, they redesigned the crucial orbital manoeuvres to correct the CubeSat trajectory, exploiting the data sent on Earth by the small probe. Throughout the whole project, they worked in synergy with the Italian Space Agency, University of Bologna, Argotec S.r.l. and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory personell.

The maneouvers they constantly worked on and performed by the small on-board engine, where aimed to avoid the debris generated by the impact while optimally pointing the on-board cameras to take the highest number of useful images, which will be later downloaded to Earth, to let the National Institute of Astrophysics scientists, coordinated by Dr Elisabetta Dotto, leader of the mission, work on their postprocessing.

LICIA represents a technological pathfinder and a primacy in the CubeSat arena, as it paves the way for such class of satellites to gaina role even on highly challenging space missions; moreover, LICIA witnesses a successful and profitable collaboration between Academy, Research Center and small enterprise, under the coordination of the Italian Space Agency, confirming the excellence of the technical-scientific competences of our Country and the professionality of our young researchers in an extremely high-profile international arena,
Michèle Lavagna

Credits cover image: NASA – Johns Hopkins, APL – Steve Gribben.png

Technologies to reveal the composition of asteroids

Posted on 28/07/202228/07/2022 by admin

The Politecnico di Milano is coordinator of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship (MSCA-IF) CRADLE (Collecting Asteroid-Orbiting Samples) project, which aims to make asteroid exploration more robust and self-sufficient through innovative solutions for the collection of asteroid and comet dust samples.

Asteroids and comets hold fundamental clues about the birth and evolution of our Solar System. They are rich in valuable natural resources such as metals, silicates and water, all of which could be exploited through future extraction missions and enable long-term self-sustaining space travel. However, the physical composition of asteroids is varied and, for the most part, relatively unknown.

The aim of the CRADLE project, led by Mirko Trisolini, researcher for the COMPASS team in the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology at the Politecnico di Milano, is precisely to improve our understanding of asteroids by revealing the dynamics and composition of their dust.

CRADLE explores new ways of collecting asteroid samples by studying how to collect particles whilst they are still in orbit, without having to land, thus avoiding complex and high-risk operations.

By striking the asteroid with a small but fast projectile, the particles that make up the samples can be dislodged. Once the asteroid is hit, the particles are ejected from the impact crater; the way in which they do this depends on the nature of the impact itself and the properties of the target.

It is a complex process, for which we use statistical models, also integrating images of the impact event and impact site. The collection of particles in orbit is based on predicting particle positions after impact; therefore, improving the robustness of impact analysis combined with statistical analysis methods is of paramount importance. In-orbit collection also means figuring out where to position the spacecraft in relation to the asteroid, as well as what type of collection tool it should be equipped with.
Mirko Trisolini, researcher for the COMPASS team

CRADLE therefore studies particle movement around the asteroid to predict which areas will be the most favourable for collection and, by estimating the number of particles that will become dislodged, calculates the size of instrument required for collection.

Mirko Trisolini is working to discover the dynamics of asteroid dust at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, under the supervision of Prof. Camilla Colombo (Politecnico di Milano) and Prof. Yuichi Tsuda (JAXA), Project Manager of the Hayabusa2 mission that collected samples from the Ryugu asteroid and brought them back to Earth.

CRADLE official website

Politecnico di Milano takes part in the launch of the dart probe by NASA

Posted on 05/11/202105/11/2021 by User User

The DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) by NASA will be launched on board of a SpaceX Falcon 9 from the Vandenberg base in California. With this probe, NASA will be experimentally testing, for the first time, the possibility of deviating the trajectory of an asteroid that poses a potential threat to the Earth, through controlled impact: DART will, in fact, hit the smaller of the two asteroids in the binary system called Didymos in an attempt to change its orbit.

Fundamental to the success of this mission is the contribution made by the small satellite called LiciaCube (Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids), a small all-Italian probe and the first European CubeSat vehicle to travel into deep space, far from the Earth.

The 6U CubeSat (10x20x30xm) will be ejected from DART 10 days before impact with the Dimorphos asteroid. The LiciaCube will then continue in autonomous navigation, with the important task of capturing images of DART and Dimorphos during the impact, of the crater and the fragments generated, enabling essential data to be gathered for the study of this small celestial body and to check the dynamics of the impact.

LiciaCube, the first deep space mission developed and managed by an all-Italian team under the guide of the Italian Space Agency has seen contribution by the researchers in the ASTRA research group headed by Professor Michèle Lavagna, Andrea Capannolo and Giovanni Zanotti, from the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology at Politecnico di Milano. They were responsible for designing the ejection trajectory and manoeuvring profile that will ensure a correct approach to the celestial body and recording of the cloud of fragments without putting this small satellite at the risk of collision.

Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab