The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is all set to launch the world’s first planetary defense test mission into space on November 24. The mission, which is monitored as the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), will target a moonlet asteroid called Dimorphos and will hit it on purpose. The idea behind this activity in the cosmos is to check whether the spacecraft can impact the asteroid kinetically and deflect its path. “DART will be the first demonstration of the ‘kinetic impactor’ technique, which involves deliberate collision with an asteroid in motion,” said Lindley Johnson in a press release.

The spacecraft that is bound to collide Dimorphos will be sent to space on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. NASA reported that the spacecraft will hit the moonlet asteroid at a speed of roughly 24,000 kilometres per hour, and the impact is expected to happen somewhere around September next year. The asteroid that NASA has chosen for the DART mission test is no threat to Earth but is simply chosen for research purposes.

NASA took to YouTube to share the developments in the mission and announce the launch of the spacecraft. In the description, NASA wrote, “DART will collide with and slightly change the speed of Dimorphos, small moonlet orbiting the asteroid Didymos. The asteroid will be over 6 million miles away, and the collision between DART and Dimorphos will pose no threat to Earth, either before or after the collision.” Using the data collected by the impact, NASA hopes to gain insights on how to protect the planet from future asteroid threats that may come in Earth’s way.

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The DART mission, which is monitored as the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), will target a moonlet asteroid called Dimorphos and will hit it on purpose. The idea behind this activity in the cosmos is to check whether the spacecraft can impact the asteroid kinetically and deflect its path.