NASA's DART mission to test asteroid defense concept

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched a spacecraft on November 23 on a mission to smash into an asteroid and test whether it would be possible to knock a speeding space rock off course if one were to threaten Earth. The DART spacecraft, short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. If all goes well, the boxy, 1,200-pound craft will slam head-on into Dimorphos, an asteroid 525 feet across, at 15,000 mph next September. The DART technique could prove useful for altering the course of an asteroid years or decades before it bears down on Earth with the potential for catastrophe. DART will take 10 months to reach the asteroid pair. The collision will occur about 6.8 million miles from Earth. Ten days beforehand, DART will release a tiny observation spacecraft supplied by the Italian space agency that will follow it. DART will stream video until it is destroyed on impact. Three minutes later, the trailing craft will make images of the impact site and material that is ejected.