Mission Design Challenge
Test an Asteroid-Deflection Mission
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Learning goals
- Match instruments to the science goals of the challenge.
- Balance mass, power, cost, risk, and communication throughput.
- Explain your design tradeoffs in your own words.
Help & glossary
- Meters update in real time so you can see the impact of each choice.
- Errors are red; warnings are amber. You can still launch with warnings.
- Your written explanation stays on this device.
This is an educational mission-design simulation. Scores and simplified engineering values do not represent an approved or operational NASA mission.
1. Briefing2. Platform3. Power4. Comms5. Instruments6. Timeline7. Explanation8. Results
Mission briefing
Design a kinetic-impactor demonstration to change the orbit of a small asteroid moon by a measurable amount. You must characterize the target first, then hit it, and finally verify the orbital change from Earth or a companion spacecraft.
- Destination
- Near-Earth binary asteroid system
- Mission type
- Kinetic impactor
- Environment
- airless, sunlit-day
Science goals
- Characterize the target moonlet and primary body.
- Impact the moonlet at high velocity.
- Verify the induced orbital-period change from Earth-based observations.
Sources
- DART — NASA Planetary Defense — NASA/APL · Accessed 2026-09-01
- Planetary Defense Coordination Office — NASA — NASA · Accessed 2026-09-01