ESA wants your help to guide development of an international
asteroid mission. Posted 01.15.2013 at 2:01 pm AIDA Mission
Concept The US-European Asteroid Impact and Deflection mission,
or AIDA, would send two small spacecraft to intercept a binary
asteroid. The first Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART)
spacecraft will collide with the smaller of the two asteroids.
Meanwhile, the Asteroid Impact Monitor (AIM) craft will survey
these bodies in detail, before and after the collision. The
impact should change the pace at which the objects spin around
each other, observable from Earth. But AIM’s close-up view will
‘ground-truth’ such observations. We may be safe from killer
asteroid Apophis, but plenty of other near-Earth asteroids could
pose a threat sooner or later. Sure, humans could send up a
probe or a space sail in a desperate attempt to deflect it--but
what if that mission fails? We had better start testing now, so
we’re sure this type of Hollywood scheme actually works. Enter
the AIDA mission. The Euro