LICIACube "The Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids" in support to DART: Scientific Objectives

LICIACube is a 6U CubeSat, equipped with two optical cameras: LEIA (Liciacube Explorer Imaging for Asteroid), a narrow FoV camera used for autonomous navigation and science, and LUKE (Liciacube Unit Key Explorer), a wide FoV imager with a RGB Bayer pattern filter.

Hosted by DART as a piggyback, LICIACube is planned to be released before the impact and guided to the target, reaching a minimum distance from Dimorphos of about 55 km.

During the 10-minute fly-by, the timeline foresees the acquisition of several images of the target impact and non-impact sides, as well as of the ejecta plume produced by the DART impact, in order to witness the DART impact and acquire information on the nature of Dimorphos.

Images obtained by LEIA and LUKE can be used to constrain the shape and volume of Dimorphos as well as its physical properties: the images obtained by LEIA at the closest approach allow us to study the surface morphology of Dimorphos and the presence of boulders/large blocks, while the LUKE data give us the opportunity to investigate the composition of Dimorphos through spectrophotometric analyses, allowing us to map the surface composition and investigate the surface heterogeneity at the observed scale. The images of the ejecta plume, compared with numerical models of dust dynamics, allow us to have measurements of the motion of the slow ejecta and to estimate the structure of the plume. All this information will give us the unique opportunity to investigate, for the first time in situ, the nature of a small double NEA.

References:

Dotto E. et al. (2021) PSS 199, 105185

Rivkin A.S. et al. (2021) PSJ 2, 173

Acknowledgements: The LICIACube team acknowledges financial support from Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI, contract No. 2019-31-HH.0).