Shape Modeling of Dimorphos for the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART)

Description

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is the first planetary defense test mission. It will demonstrate the kinetic impactor technique by intentionally colliding the DART spacecraft with the near-Earth asteroid Dimorphos. The main DART spacecraft is accompanied by the Italian Space Agency Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube). Shape modeling efforts will estimate the volume of Dimorphos and constrain the nature of the impact site. The DART mission uses stereophotoclinometry (SPC) as its primary shape modeling technique. DART is essentially a worst-case scenario for any image-based shape modeling approach because images taken by the camera on board the DART spacecraft, called the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO), possess little stereo and no lighting variation; they simply zoom in on the asteroid. LICIACube images add some stereo, but the images are substantially lower in resolution than the DRACO images. Despite the far-from-optimal imaging conditions, our tests indicate that we can identify the impact site to an accuracy and precision better than 10% the size of the spacecraft core, estimate the volume of Dimorphos to better than 25%, and measure tilts at the impact site over the scale of the spacecraft with an accuracy better than 7°. In short, we will know with excellent accuracy where the DART spacecraft hit, with reasonable knowledge of local tilt, and determine the volume well enough that uncertainties in the density of Dimorphos will be comparable to or dominate the uncertainty in the estimated mass. The tests reported here demonstrate that SPC is a robust technique for shape modeling, even with suboptimal images.

Abstract

International audience

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