2022.09.28 | On an asteroid far, far away, the Earth strikes back!

On The Space Show for Wednesday, 28 September 2022:

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) successfully scores a direct hit on the asteroid Dimorphos: 

• Tom Slater, DART Program Scientist at NASA, describes the test objectives of the DART mission
• Elena Adams, DART Systems Engineer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, answers questions from the media and takes us through the final stages of the mission. 

Space Show News:

• Valery Polyakov: A record-breaking Russian cosmonaut dies aged 80. Valery Polyakov spent 437 full days orbiting the Earth between 1994 and 1995 on the Mir space station.
• The maiden launch of United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan Centaur rocket set for 2022, will carry the autonomous Peregrine lunar lander for Astrobotic and the cremated remains of Australian-born NASA astronaut Philip Chapman and Star Trek actor Nichelle Nicholls for the Celestis memorial spaceflight company.
• The Artemis I has been rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building to shelter from Hurricane Ian 
• The Mars helicopter Ingenuity has made three flights in the month of September while the Perseverance rover continues to explore a geologically rich part of Jezero Crater.

National Space Council: 

• Chairperson, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris recommits the United States to a direct ascent anti-satellite test ban. The U.S. will introduce a resolution at the United Nations General Assembly to call on other nations to make the same commitment.
• Addressing orbital debris or cleaning up space junk 
• Three space directives: two for NASA and one for the Department of Transportation.