DART – Hopkins Making an Impact

Dear Johns Hopkins Community,

Last night, for the first time in the history of our world, an extraordinary team of scientists and engineers from around the globe successfully demonstrated humankind’s capacity to alter the course of an extraplanetary object—in this case an asteroid named Dimorphous—7 million miles away.

At the center of the DART (the Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission was The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. This mission offers powerful proof of humankind’s capacity to muster a defense of our planet if ever there were an extraplanetary object on a course to threaten our civilization.

On behalf of the entire Johns Hopkins community, I wish to congratulate the amazing APL team led by APL Director Ralph Semmel, APL Space Exploration Sector Head Bobby Braun, DART Mission Systems Engineer Elena Adams, and all the faculty throughout our institution who contributed to the DART mission’s success. I would also like to thank all those who cheered them on from near and far.

We are truly in awe.

In case you missed it, I hope you’ll take a moment watch this extraordinary event on the Hub website. More information about the DART mission is on the APL website.

Sincerely,
Ron

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