United States embarks on asteroid redirect planetary defence mission
The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has begun its quest to investigate requirements for preventing a hazardous asteroid from hitting Earth.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission will be the first demonstration of a kinetic impactor technique to change the motion of an asteroid in space. The DART satellite is designed to impact an asteroid as a test of technology, according to a NASA statement. The collision between the DART satellite and the target asteroid is expected in September 2022.
The asteroid system being targeted by NASA is a testing ground to determine if intentionally crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid is an effective way to change its course, should an Earth-threatening asteroid be discovered in the future. NASA said while no known asteroid larger than 140 m in size has a significant chance to hit Earth for the next 100 years, only about 40% of those asteroids have been found as of October 2021.
