The Insane Engineering of the DART Mission

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Credits:
Writer/Narrator: Brian McManus
Editor: Dylan Hennessy
Animator: Mike Ridolfi
Animator: Eli Prenten
Sound: Graham Haerther
Thumbnail: Simon Buckmaster

References:

Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images
Thank you to AP Archive for access to their archival footage.

Thank you to my patreon supporters: Adam Flohr, Henning Basma, Hank Green, William Leu, Tristan Edwards, Ian Dundore, John & Becki Johnston. Nevin Spoljaric, Jason Clark, Thomas Barth, Johnny MacDonald, Stephen Foland, Alfred Holzheu, Abdulrahman Abdulaziz Binghaith, Brent Higgins, Dexter Appleberry, Alex Pavek, Marko Hirsch, Mikkel Johansen, Hibiyi Mori. Viktor Józsa, Ron Hochsprung

[BazilRat]

I'm just here to give props for that 'the dinosaurs finally clapped back' line

[lewismassie]

I think it's awesome that when I was a kid we'd never seen an asteroid up close, and since then Rosetta visited a comet, Hayabusa 2 and OSIRIS-REx collected samples, and DART demonstrated planetary defence, all in less than 10 years

[thejesuschrist]

Good job humans! You have passed one of the great filters. Keep it up!

[KarthikVishwamitra]

Love to see humanity entering the "planetary defense" phase of our development.

[JeffreyBoye]

I worked on DART, love to see Real Engineering covering the mission!

[AmoghA]

Hey Brian! I don't know if you will see this but your videos has changed my life. I was always interested in space and engineering and watching your videos motivated me to get into this field. Now I am pursuing a masters degree in Physics and a bachelors in engineering. It might be just another upload for you but each video you post is a life changing moment for someone. I really love watching your videos. Thank you!

[Chris-okzo]

That first joke about the dinos clapping back was enough to get me invested for the rest of the video.

[somerandomguy]

Look at us. We went from throwing rocks at each other to throwing metalic objects at big rocks in space. 😁

[breadloafbrad]

Wow I never actually saw the official results, a change in 4.5% is actually crazy I didn’t expect that much

[cavemann_]

"The dinosaurs finally clapped back" is honestly the funniest sentence I've heard recently.

[gauravrathi]

The facility to watch content like this for free is a blessing

[koiyujo]

I'm still happy that dart was a huge massive success than we all expected

[TwinbornMist]

Ok but the 5% difference I didn't actually expect that's actually wild to think that the space craft imparted that much energy onto the 'moon'

[timsullivan]

When you said "tools in our arsenal" I heard '"tools in our arse, and all..."
...which is not surprising given that when I was 12 years old I'd humiliated myself in science class by claiming that "the dinosaurs went extinct due to earth being hit by a hemorrhoid..."
Ahh... the circle of life!
(btw - great video!)

[SpaceTed]

The thruster targeting system looks so similar to star tracking software (autoguider) used in astrophotography for long exposures. It would seem that system could be designed to replace moving the servo motors with tapping the thrusters. So cool.

[flymypg]

The large orbit change had to be due more to the ejecta than the DART impact alone. Would have liked to see a simplified version of a momentum analysis in this video.

[Steph.]

I still don't think people get how big this is. We took what was once considered a dooms day situation and made it beatable

[ES_YV]

I explains Real Engineering as the channel that opens a brand new dimension to explore. It's my favourite channel.

[reidcushman]

Another great video from this great channel. If I had a 2nd life to live, I'd be motivated by content like this to come back as an engineer. I hope it motivates those early in their 1st life (depending on how one counts) to consider engineering as a career. 'Cause somebody has to actually make the world work. Well done, Real Engineering.

[patrickthomas]

NASA loves an acronym... First Asteroid Redirection Test...an opportunity missed.