LICIACube: the tiny Italian photographer at DART's impact
How a six-unit CubeSat rode along with DART, peeled away 15 days early and captured the plume from 56.7 km.
Published 2026-10-23
DART was designed to destroy itself, so it couldn't photograph its own aftermath. That job went to a passenger: LICIACube, the Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids.[7][4]
A tiny spacecraft
LICIACube is a six-unit CubeSat built for the Italian Space Agency (ASI). ASI selected the aerospace company Argotec to help design, integrate and test it, and Argotec's mission control center in Turin operated it.[7] It carries two cameras, named LEIA and LUKE.[7][6]
Peeling away
On September 11, 2022, 15 days before impact, LICIACube was ejected from DART at about 1.1 m/s. That small difference in speed let it fall behind and arrive at the asteroid just after the crash.[7]
The flyby
LICIACube passed the Didymos system at a distance of 56.7 km, about 165 seconds after DART's impact, sending images of the ejecta plume directly back to Earth.[7] The first images were published on September 28, 2022.[7] Together with Hubble, Webb and ground-based telescopes, it helped document the plume.[6]
An Italian first
LICIACube is described as the first purely Italian autonomous spacecraft in deep space, and the first deep-space mission developed and managed by an Italian team.[7]
Small spacecraft, big role
CubeSats are now riding along on bigger missions. ESA's Hera carries two of its own, Juventas and Milani, to study Dimorphos and Didymos up close.[8]
Numbered citations link to the sources list on the Dimorphos overview page.