LICIACube

LICIACube (Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids) is a 6U CubeSat built by Argotec for the Italian Space Agency (ASI) as an independent observer for NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission. The satellite was carried to the Didymos binary asteroid system aboard the DART spacecraft and released 15 days before impact, then flew by the system on September 26, 2022 to image the aftermath of DART’s kinetic impactor collision with Dimorphos.

LICIACube carried two optical cameras (LUKE and LEIA) optimized for different fields of view and lighting conditions to capture the ejecta plume, impact crater, and structural changes to Dimorphos during the flyby. The spacecraft performed autonomous navigation to ensure optimal imaging geometry during the encounter, using onboard processing to handle the high-speed encounter conditions that made ground-in-the-loop control impractical.

LICIACube’s imagery provided the first independent visual confirmation of the DART impact and the scale of the ejecta cloud, complementing data from DART’s onboard DRACO camera that cut off at impact. The mission demonstrated Italian CubeSat capability for precision deep space encounters and established Argotec as one of the few commercial companies with operational experience in interplanetary small satellite missions.