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A device for measuring the gravity of an asteroid

08.06.2023

When ESA's Juventas CubeSat lands on Dimorphos in 2026 to assess the aftermath of last year's spectacular collisions with NASA's DART spacecraft, its Solar System Small Body GRAvimeter (GRASS) instrument directly measures the gravity of the asteroid, which is one in a million.

In September 2022, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) crashed into Dimorphos orbiting the larger asteroid Didymos as part of an experiment to learn more about how to deflect potentially hazardous celestial bodies before they reach Earth. This was only half the job, because the ongoing ESA Hera mission was tasked with assessing the effects of a space impact.

Part of that effort includes the Juventas CubeSat, roughly the size of two loaves of bread, which will be deployed from the Hera deep space probe and land on Dimorphos. Among a small set of instruments is the GRASS gravimeter, developed by the Royal Belgian Observatory (ROB) in conjunction with the Spanish company EMXYS, which is now completing pre-launch tests at the space agency's Mechanical Systems Laboratory to determine the ability to withstand launch vibration and corrosive environments. space.

About the size of a couple of smartphones, GRASS is designed to measure the gravity of Dimorphos. This requires a high degree of sensitivity, since the asteroid is only the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. He does this with two sets of thin plates fixed in continuously rotating stands. If the movement of these blades changes even slightly, this changes the electrical voltage in the blades and walls surrounding them.

According to the ESA, this gives GRASS a micrometer-equivalent sensitivity for the 20 hours of battery life it would get after landing, which would likely block Junentas' solar arrays. While on the surface of an asteroid, GRASS will be able to not only measure local gravity, but also any shifts in the position of the CubeSat.

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accurate monitoring of the state of the lithium battery, which allows to extend the life of the device and replace the battery in advance;
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system diagnostic mode for accurate estimation of power consumption during development;
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Areas of use:

gas leak detection;
building automation.

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