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The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission will be the first test ofa kinetic impactor as a means of planetary defense. In late 2022, DART willcollide with Dimorphos, the secondary in the Didymos binary asteroid system.The impact will cause a momentum transfer from the spacecraft to the binaryasteroid, changing the orbit period of Dimorphos and forcing it to librate inits orbit. Owing to the coupled dynamics in binary asteroid systems, the orbitand libration state of Dimorphos are intertwined. Thus, as the secondarylibrates, it also experiences fluctuations in its orbit period. Thesevariations in the orbit period are dependent on the magnitude of the impactperturbation, as well as the system's state at impact and the moments ofinertia of the secondary. In general, any binary asteroid system whosesecondary is librating will have a non-constant orbit period on account of thesecondary's fluctuating spin rate. The orbit period variations are typicallydriven by two modes: a long-period and short-period, each with significantamplitudes on the order of tens of seconds to several minutes. The fluctuatingorbit period offers both a challenge and an opportunity in the context of theDART mission. Orbit period oscillations will make determining the post-impactorbit period more difficult, but can also provide information about thesystem's libration state and the DART impact.

Libration-induced Orbit Period Variations Following the DART Impact