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Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, February 27, 2017 / 3:30 PM, Building 8 Auditorium

Brent Barbee

"The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission"

ABSTRACT -- The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is an APL-led NASA mission currently in development, with the goal of performing the first demonstration of the kinetic impactor technique for deflecting hazardous near-Earth asteroids (NEAs). DART has recently completed Phase A and is in the process of beginning Phase B activities. The mission plan calls for the DART spacecraft to launch in 2020, use it's solar electric propulsion system to spiral out from Earth orbit, and perform a hypervelocity impact the smaller secondary member of the binary NEA designated 65803 Didymos (1996 GT) in October of 2022, when the binary asteroid will be close enough to Earth for ground-based observations. The DART impact will alter the orbit of the secondary member of the binary system about its primary in a measurable way. GSFC is supporting this mission in the areas of binary asteroid dynamics modeling and interplanetary solar electric propulsion trajectory optimization. In this talk I will provide an overview of the DART mission, place it into the larger context of planetary defense against hazardous asteroids, and describe GSFC's work on the mission team to date.

SPEAKER -- Brent W. Barbee is an Aerospace Engineer in the Navigation and Mission Design Branch of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center; he is also adjunct graduate faculty in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at The University of Maryland, where he teaches graduate courses. Mr. Barbee supported flight dynamics for launch of the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission, which launched successfully on September 8th, 2016, is the technical lead for NASA's Near-Earth Object Human Space Flight Accessible Targets Study (NHATS), is managing work on the Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) mission at GSFC, and conducts research on planetary defense against hazardous near-Earth objects (NEOs). Mr. Barbee is a recipient of NASA's Early Career Achievement Medal and the AIAA National Capital Section 2012-2013 Hal Andrews Young Engineer/Scientist of the Year Award. He received his Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.

Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov