The night between September 26 and 27, NASA's DART spacecraft will crash deliberately on asteroid Dimorphos, to perform the first full-scale test of planetary defense.

The goal is to test the capability to deflect asteroids using high-speed impacts of man-made space probes.

The target of DART mission is Dimorphos, the smaller of two asteroids forming the binary system Didymos.

The impact will be documented by the Italian Space Agency small spacecraft LICIACUBE flying just behind DART, whose challenging trajectory control is in charge of the ASTRA team in PoliMi-DAER, Giovanni Zanotti, Michele Ceresoli and Michèle Lavagna.

The outcome of the DART impact will reveal crucial insights on asteroids, our closest neighbors in the Solar System.

Fabio Ferrari (PoliMi-DAER) is part of NASA's DART Investigation Team, which will study post-impact effects on the Didymos system.

The impact event will be streamed live on NASA TV and NASA's YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6Z1E0mW2ag&ab_channel=NASA).

Further information is available at APL's and NASA's DART official webpages (https://dart.jhuapl.edu/), (https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/dart/dart-news) and ASI channel (www.asi.it)