Program: GN-2020B-Q-209

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) will be the first space experiment to demonstrate asteroid impact hazard mitigation by using a kinetic impactor. At this writing DART is moving toward a summer 2021 launch as part of the Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA), an international planetary defence collaboration, which also includes ESA's Hera mission.The DART spacecraft is designed to impact the secondary of the Didymos system and modify its trajectory through momentum transfer. The DART impact will change the orbital period of the binary, to be measured by light curve observations in the post-impact period. In order to correctly interpret and make optimum use of data from the impact epoch, and to arrange for arrival at the right orbit phase, we need to understand the baseline, unperturbed dynamics of the system. For this reason, we are undertaking observing campaigns whenever Didymos is making an apparition. We propose light curve observations of Didymos in 2020B.