Planetary Defense System: we have witnessed a milestone in the history of science

On Tuesday (October 11), the United States Space Agency (NASA) reported that the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission fulfilled the desired objective. In other words, for the first time in history, humanity has altered the course of a celestial body.

The unprecedented feat is impactful, transformative, and disruptive!

For two weeks, after colliding an unmanned ship against the asteroid Dimorphos, NASA monitored the trajectory of this celestial body. With the impact, Dimorphos has gained speed and is spinning 32 minutes faster around its pair, a larger asteroid called Didymos. Because of the gravitational pull between the two, NASA expects the Didymos trajectory to be altered as well.

The story of the first test of a planetary defense system began nine years ago and has a trigger that is recurrent in the processes of innovation and development of disruptive technologies: finding the solution to a problem.

In February 2013, a meteor exploded over Russia in the Chelyabinsk region, causing an explosion of air, whose shockwave hit six cities injuring about a thousand people. The object was only 18 meters wide, demonstrating that even small asteroids have the potential to wreak significant havoc.

Astronomers estimate that there are thousands of near-Earth asteroids, many of them ten times larger than Chelyabinsk. In these cases, evaluate the experts, they are large enough to cause regional devastation once hitting our planet.

This real problem prompted NASA to lead a team, in conjunction with the Johns Hopkins University Laboratory of Applied Physics, to develop and test a planetary defense system. The first concept that emerged is known as kinetic impact and consists of hitting a celestial body with an unmanned ship, causing a “push” and, consequently, a change of course.

To put the thesis to the test, the DART program had its ship launched from Earth on November 24, 2021. The project used a new autonomous steering system, a technology that allowed the spacecraft — the size of a passenger car — to be able to aim and hit the asteroid Dimorphos, which occurred on September 26, 2022. The impact occurred at a speed of six kilometers per second or more than 21,000 kilometers per hour (20 times faster than an Airbus A380).

The feat does not carry the symbolism of man’s arrival on the Moon, but it is just as impactful. I highlight this achievement as another great leap for humanity, among some others achieved since the iconic phrase of Neil Armstrong, when he stepped on the Moon: “That’s a small step for man, a giant leap for mankind.”

Between the two landmarks in the history of space exploration, we had a period of 53 years (1969 to 2022). This means that a 65-year-old person (or a bit more) has observed both conquests. And the next big leap is to come, possibly in a decade or two: the arrival of mankind on Mars.

What a number of disruptive leaps in less than a century, isn’t that right? What others do you think are coming? In which areas: communication, transport, health, agriculture, and urban planning? What leap of disruptive technology do you want to witness?

There is certainly much to come!