AIDA (international space cooperation)
The Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) missions are a proposed pair of space probes which will study and demonstrate the kinetic effects of crashing an impactor spacecraft into an asteroid moon. The mission is intended to test and validate impact models of whether a spacecraft could successfully deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.
| Mission type | Dual asteroid probes |
|---|---|
| Operator | ESA / NASA |
| Website | AIDA study |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | |
| Rocket | |
| Dimorphos impactor | |
| Spacecraft component | DART |
| Impact date | 26 September 2022 |
| (65803) Didymos orbiter | |
| Spacecraft component | Hera, Milani, Juventas |
| Orbital insertion | January 2027 |
The original plan called for a European spacecraft, the Asteroid Impact Mission (AIM), to operate in synergy with a large NASA impactor called Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) and observe the immediate effects of the impact. AIM was cancelled in 2016 when Germany was unable to fund its portion, and after some backlash within European Space Agency (ESA), AIM was replaced in 2018 with a smaller spacecraft called Hera that will launch five years after DART to orbit and study the crater on the asteroid. Hera will also deploy two European CubeSats in deep space for close-up asteroid surveying: Juventas and Milani.
DART impacted Dimorphos, the asteroid moonlet of 65803 Didymos, on 26 September 2022. Hera will arrive at Didymos in December 2026, four years and three months after DART's impact.