Double Asteroid Redirection Test

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was a NASA space mission for planetary defense against near-Earth objects (NEOs). It was made to see how much a spacecraft could move an asteroid out of its trajectory (the path it is guessed to travel.)[1] The asteroid that was picked was not dangerous to earth, and was picked because it was simple. The spacecraft flew on the 24th of November 2021, and hit what it was aiming for, the asteroid Dimorphos.

DART was a joint project between NASA and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).

The DART spacecraft was successfully launched on 24 November 2021, with collision aimed for 26 September 2022 to 2 October 2022.[2][3]

References

  1. Bardan, Roxana (2022-09-26). "NASA's DART Mission Hits Asteroid in First-Ever Planetary Defense Test". NASA. Retrieved 2022-11-22.
  2. "SpaceX ready for first launch with NASA interplanetary mission". Spaceflight Now. 22 November 2021. Retrieved 24 November 2021.
  3. "DART Launch Moves to Secondary Window". NASA. 17 February 2021. Retrieved 24 November 2021. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.