Liciacube Satellite S First Images From After Dart S Collision With Target Asteroid

Although no more images will be coming from the DART spacecraft, its CubeSat companion Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube), deployed from the spacecraft fifteen days before impact. Provided by the Italian Space Agency, LICIACube’s mission is to capture images of DART’s impact and of the asteroid’s resulting cloud of ejected matter. In tandem with the images returned by DRACO, LICIACube’s images will help provide a view of the collision’s effects to help scientists better characterize the effectiveness of kinetic impact in deflecting an asteroid. LICIACube doesn’t carry a large antenna, so images will be downloading very slowly over the next few weeks. However, the first have already arrived: See DART’s final DRACO images before impact.