DART IMPACTS DIMORPHOS, Sept 26, 2022, Outer Space, 7:14 pm ET

Update, August 24:  Live video from the spacecraft will air on NASA TV’s Media Channel beginning at 5:30 pm ET, but there will be no commentary. The main mission coverage is what begins at 6:00 pm ET on NASA TV’s Public Channel

Update, August 23:  NASA TV will cover the impact beginning at 6:00 pm ET on September 26 on its Public Channel from Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, MD, which built and manages DART.

Monday, Sept. 26 (DART Impact Day)

• 6 p.m. – Live coverage of DART’s impact with the asteroid Dimorphos will air on NASA TV and the agency’s website. The public also can watch live on agency social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
• 7:14 p.m. – DART’s kinetic impact with asteroid Dimorphos.

Original Entry: NASA’s Doube Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft will impact its target, Dimorphos, the tiny moon of the double asteroid Didymos, on September 26, 2022 at 7:14 pm ET.

The spacecraft was launched on November 23, 2021. Its mission is to impact Dimorphos and impart kinetic energy that will cause a change in the moon’s orbit around Didymos. It is a test to determine how to divert asteroids that might be on a collision course with Earth. This one is NOT on such a course. It was chosen for the test because it is nearby and will be in the correct position to be viewable by Earth-based telescopes that can measure the change. A tiny Italian cubesat, LICIACube, will be ejected from DART just before impact to send back data, but no other other part of the spacecraft is intended to survive the encounter.