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The DART spacecraft was the first spacecraft to use a new type of high-gain communication antenna, a Spiral Radial Line Slot Array (RLSA). The circularly-polarized antenna operated at the X-band NASA Deep Space Network (NASA DSN) frequencies of 7.2 and 8.4 GHz, and had a gain of 29.8 dBi on downlink and 23.6 dBi on uplink.
The last complete image of asteroid moonlet Dimorphos was taken by the DRACO imager on NASA's DART mission at a distance of about 7 miles (12 kilometers) and 2 seconds before impact.
The DART spacecraft was launched on 24 November 2021, and impacted Dimorphos on September 26, 2022. [ 28 ] [ 29 ] [ 30 ] It was accompanied by the Italian Space Agency 's (ASI) six-unit LICIACube flyby Cubesat that was released 15 days before impact to observe the asteroid and DART's impact.
The DART impact on the center of Dimorphos decreased the orbital period, previously 11.92 hours, by 33±1 minutes. This large change indicates the recoil from material excavated from the asteroid and ejected into space by the impact (known as ejecta) contributed significant momentum change to the asteroid, beyond that of the DART spacecraft itself.
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LICIACube is the first deep space mission developed and autonomously managed by an Italian team. To collaborate upon the design, integration, and testing of the CubeSat, the Italian Space Agency selected the aerospace company Argotec, while the LICIACube GS has a complex architecture based on a mission control center in Turin hosted by Argotec and science operation center in Rome.
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DART, or Demonstration for Autonomous Rendezvous Technology, was a NASA spacecraft with the goal to develop and demonstrate an automated navigation and rendezvous capability. At the time of the DART mission, only the Roscosmos and JAXA had autonomous spacecraft navigation.