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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 ( microwave ) 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 DART spacecraft streamed these images from its DRACO camera back to Earth in real time as it approached the asteroid. This replay movie is 10 times faster than reality, except for the last six images, which are shown at the same rate that the spacecraft returned them. Both Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos are visible at the start of the movie.
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 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.
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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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Images featured on the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) web site may be copyrighted. The National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC) site has been known to host copyrighted content. Its photo gallery FAQ states that all of the images in the photo gallery are in the public domain "Unless otherwise noted."