NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was the first planetary defense test mission. The DART spacecraft purposefully ran into a small asteroid, Dimorphos, on September 26, 2022, in order to test asteroid deflection. DART was a huge success, changing Dimorphos’s orbital period by around 30 minutes and generating many tons of ejecta. We will discuss planetary defense, the DART mission, initial results from the team and how we are using those results to learn more about Dimorphos, Didymos, and future applications to planetary defense.

Dr. Angela Stickle is a planetary geologist with a background in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, and impact processes on planetary surfaces. She specializes in hypervelocity impact processes and dynamic failure of materials. Dr Stickle is currently a senior research scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. She is the Deputy Principal-Investigator for the Mini-RF radar, a Co-I for the LRO-LAMP instrument aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the impact modeling working group lead for the Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission, and a Co-I on the Dragonfly mission. Her research includes analyzing young impact craters on the Moon to better understand ejecta emplacement processes, impact modeling on asteroids and rocky/icy bodies, planetary defense testing, and working to understand and evaluate available technology for future lunar surface missions. Asteroid 36986 Stickle is named in her honor.