| Description: The mission_phase identifies the time period within the mission. |
| Namespace Id: dart | Steward: sbn | Class Name: DART_Parameters | Type: ASCII_Short_String_Preserved |
| Minimum Value: None | Maximum Value: None | Minimum Characters: 1 | Maximum Characters: 255 |
| Unit of Measure Type: None | Default Unit Id: None | Attribute Concept: None | Conceptual Domain: SHORT_STRING |
| Status: Active | Nillable: false | Pattern: None |
| Permissible Value(s) | Value | Value Meaning |
| | approach | The approach phase begins begins when the Didymos system is first acquired by DRACO, ~30 days before impact, and extends until the terminal phase begins. During this phase, DRACO acquires a long-range suite of observations where the Didymos system is mostly not resolvable. Light curve information complementary to ground-based observations will be extracted from these images. |
| | commissioning | The commissioning phase lasts for TBD days after launch. Images acquired during this phase include calibrations and functional testing for DRACO to ensure proper operations. |
| | cruise | The cruise phase begins after the commissioning phase and runs until the beginning of teh approach phase. Images acquired during this phase are used for several purposes, including for Optical navigation (OpNav), testing of SMART Nav algorithms, and star calibrations to characterize distortion and responsivity. |
| | final | The final phase comprises the last ~4 min of the DART mission. During this phase, all DRACO images will be devoted to characterization of Dimorphos, as autonomous navingation will have been completed. In the baseline trajectory at ~20s (TBR after launch) prior to impact, DRACO achieves its requirement to image Dimorphos at a pixel scale of 66 cm. Higher resolution images will continue to be acquired in the final seconds of DART spacecraft operations, which end upon impact. |
| | prelaunch | The prelaunch phase refers to the period of software development and testing of the data processing pipeline, before launch. Data products generated during this phase include calibration files created during the ground testing of the instrument as well as data products created for peer review. |
| | terminal | The terminal phase begins with the initiation of DART's autonomous navigation, ~4 h prior to impact, and extends until the final phase begins. During this phase, the separation between Didymos and Dimorphos can be resolved, and DRACO images support both autonomous navigation (via Smart Nav algorithms) and characterization of Didymos and Dimorphos. The final image to contain both members of the system will be acquired ~4 minutes before impact, at a scale of ~7m. By the end of this phase, images will be obtained of Dimorphos that have a 2 x 2 binned pixel scale of ~3.5m. |