On the Dynamics of Binary Asteroids Applied to DART Mission Target (65803) Didymos

Abstract

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission will be the first full-scale demonstration of a kinetic impactor for planetary defense. On September 26, 2022, the DART spacecraft is expected to impact Dimorphos, the secondary component of the Didymos binary asteroid system. The DART impact will reduce Dimorphos’s relative orbital velocity, shrinking both its semimajor axis and orbit period. The mutual orbit period will then be measured us- ing ground- and space-based observations in order to deduce the momentum transfer efficiency, which is an important parameter in planetary defense that has never been measured experimentally at a realistic scale.

This thesis comprises a set of studies on the spin and orbital dynamics of the Didymos system conducted in support of the DART mission. Owing to the close proximity of Didymos and Dimorphos and their irregular shapes, the mutual dynamics are non-Keplerian and exhibit a high degree of spin-orbit coupling, which often requires the use of specialized numerical methods to model the system. First, we conducted a benchmarking and sensitivity study to identify the best simulation codes for future DART-supported studies and to understand how small perturbations in the initial conditions can affect the resulting dynamical evolution of the system. Then, we demonstrated that Dimorphos can enter a wide range of post-impact spin states, including possible chaotic non-principal axis rotation, depending on its shape and the amount of momentum transferred by the DART impact. We then explored the implications of an excited spin state, including the possibility of ongoing granular motion on Dimorphos’s surface resulting from the orbital perturbation induced by the DART impact.

This thesis is focused predominantly on the dynamics of the Didymos binary. However, there are many other binary systems among the near-Earth asteroid population with similar physical and dynamical properties, making the results presented here relevant to the NEA binary population in general.