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NASA will use super-powerful ion engine to redirect asteroid

Perhaps the Deep Impact it’s not happening yet (although the enemy there was a comet), but the threat of an asteroid attacking Earth and making humans as extinct as dinosaurs is not just science fiction.

NASA to use superpowered ion engine to redirect asteroid in 2021
NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster-Commercial, NEXT-C

NASA is not taking any chances. As we don’t want our species to follow the path of brontosaurus, the space agency is updating its mission DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) so it can take off next July. The DART mission is powered by Evolutionary Xenon Thruster – Commercial NASA (NEXT-C), a powerful ion mechanism being tested for the mission. He will have the chance to show I could in a demonstration that will confront him with the non-threatening binary asteroid system, Didymos.

The NEXT-C may not be a rocket engine that needs an immense amount of momentum to take off, but it is one of the most powerful ion rockets of all time. It tripled the power of NSTAR engines on ships Dawn and Deep Space One from NASA, and those were already pretty powerful. Its propellant and power processing unit (PPU) are its main components. The propeller underwent a series of tests, including vibration, thermal vacuum and performance tests, as well as extreme launch vibration and brutal cold from space, before scientists determined it was ready to join forces with the PPU.

Just to give you an idea of ​​how powerful the NEXT-C is, it is capable of 6.9 kilowatts of thrust power. It exceeds the full thrust of any other ion mechanism, and its specific thrust, the fuel efficiency of a rocket engine, is much greater than that of NSTAR.

Ion drives like NEXT-C do not burn fuel like a rocket engine. They are usually supplied with xenon through a chamber that meets one of the two accelerator grids, and the xenon ions are positively charged with the electricity absorbed by the solar arrays. The negative charge of the second grid instantly attracts positively charged ions, which produces monstrous impulses, propelling them out of the engine and launching the spacecraft into the sky.

DART will be collaborating with cubesats LICIA (Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids) of the Italian Space Agency, when it reaches Didymos B. The impact on this asteroid is expected to change its rotation period, changing its orbital speed by half a millimeter per second. Telescopes on Earth will be able to see this. While the probe tries to push the asteroid out of its path, LICIA visualizes the process and captures the impact debris to bring it back to Earth. Although DART will be crushed by the collision after leaving behind a huge crater, ESA’s next Hera mission will later approximate the effects of this asteroid’s impact and insides.

Didymos may not be on a deadly trajectory, but at 780 meters in diameter, Didymos A, the largest of the two asteroids, is the size of something that could turn our planet into a post-apocalyptic nightmare. What happened 66 million years ago could easily happen again if something out of space comes to us.

The impact of the asteroid Chicxulub it didn’t destroy almost everything in one day. It unleashed volcanoes that belched huge streams of magma and basically set the planet on fire. What didn’t burn with the heat, drown in ashes, drown in a tsunami or starve to death after its food sources disappeared, facing a devastating nuclear winter. So much gray was launched into the sky that it blocked the sunlight and heat necessary for the survival of most life forms on Earth. What did not perish during the first round froze to death in the second. Most plants withered. Few creatures have managed to survive.

If the DART demo works, it means that the Earth has at least one defense against another dinopocalipse.

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