After 10 months flying in space, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) – the world’s first planetary defense technology demonstration – successfully impacted its asteroid target Dimorphos on Monday, Sept. 26, 2022, the agency’s first attempt to move an asteroid in space. During the spacecraft’s final moments before impact, its Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO) imager took four images capturing its terminal approach as Dimorphos increasingly fills the field of view.
![Asteroid Didymos (bottom left) and its moonlet, Dimorphos, about 2.5 minutes before the impact of NASA’s DART spacecraft.](https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/both_dart_0401929889_03770_01_iof_imagedisplay-final.png?w=1041)
![Asteroid moonlet Dimorphos as seen by the DART spacecraft 11 seconds before impact.](https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/all_dimorphos_dart_0401930040_12262_01_iof_imagedisplay-final.png?w=1041)
![The last complete image of asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, taken by the DRACO imager on NASA’s DART mission from ~7 miles (12 kilometers) from the asteroid and 2 seconds before impact.](https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/penultimate_dart_0401930049_43695_01_iof_imagedisplay-final.png?w=1041)
![DART’s final look at the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos before impact.](https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/final_dart_0401930050_41838_01_iof_imagedisplay-final.png?w=1041)