The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) next week will conduct an "asteroid impact exercise" featuring a realistic, but fictional scenario where an asteroid is on a collision course with the Earth.
To be held at The Hotel at the University of Maryland on May 1, this planetary defense exercise will be a key part of the IAA's 2019 Planetary Defense Conference. The exercise was developed by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Center for NEO Studies (CNEOS).
It is the latest move towards mounting a more effective defense of the Earth against Near Earth Objects (NEOs), especially the more dangerous "city killers" and "planet killers."
A NEO is defined as anything (asteroid or comet) that orbits the Sun and comes within 30 million miles (50 million kilometers) of Earth's orbit. Astronomers estimate there are more than 1,000 near-Earth asteroids larger than a kilometer across.
The current state of technology precludes an effective defense against large NEOs. The defense is possible, however, against the many small asteroids that have a much greater probability of smashing into the Earth.
NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and other concerned organizations are preparing to defend against the possibility of a NEO impact in the future.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine will deliver the conference's keynote address. Bill Nye, chief executive officer of The Planetary Society and widely known as "the Science Guy," will participate in a panel discussion about defending Earth from asteroids.
NASA said the exercise is part of the National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy and Action Plan the White House published in June 2018.
The space agency last week announced a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch our first planetary defense satellite on June 2021 to demonstrate the feasibility of using a kinetic impact spacecraft to deflect a small asteroid.
This mission will send the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft towards the small asteroid named 65803 Didymos. Didymos is a binary asteroid system in which one asteroid is orbited by a smaller one.
The primary asteroid, or Didymos, is some 800 meters in diameter. Its small satellite or moonlet is about 150 meters in diameter in an orbit 1.1 km from Didymos. DART will target the moonlet.
DART will collide with the moonlet at a speed of 6 kilometers per second. The goal of this mission will be to change the speed of the moonlet in its orbit around Didymos by a fraction of 1 percent.
DART will demonstrate the kinetic effects of crashing an impactor spacecraft into an asteroid for planetary defense. The mission will test if a spacecraft impact can successfully deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.
