NASA on Wednesday launched a spacecraft with one simple mission: Smash into an asteroid at 15,000 miles per hour.
The mission, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, left Earth to test whether slamming a spacecraft into an asteroid can nudge it into a different trajectory. Results from the test, if successful, will come in handy if NASA and other space agencies ever need to deflect an asteroid to save Earth and avert a catastrophic impact.
The DART spacecraft lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Wednesday at 1:21 a.m. Eastern time (or 10:21 p.m. local time) from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The rocket reached space before sending its reusable booster back toward the ocean to land on a SpaceX’s drone ship. It will take about an hour to deploy the spacecraft in orbit, and hours after that it will unfurl solar panels to power the vehicle on its journey.
The mission, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, left Earth to test whether slamming a spacecraft into an asteroid can nudge it into a different trajectory. Results from the test, if successful, will come in handy if NASA and other space agencies ever need to deflect an asteroid to save Earth and avert a catastrophic impact.
The DART spacecraft lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Wednesday at 1:21 a.m. Eastern time (or 10:21 p.m. local time) from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The rocket reached space before sending its reusable booster back toward the ocean to land on a SpaceX’s drone ship. It will take about an hour to deploy the spacecraft in orbit, and hours after that it will unfurl solar panels to power the vehicle on its journey.
NASA on Wednesday launched a spacecraft with one simple mission: Smash into an asteroid at 15,000 miles per hour.
The mission, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, left Earth to test whether slamming a spacecraft into an asteroid can nudge it into a different trajectory. Results from the test, if successful, will come in handy if NASA and other space agencies ever need to deflect an asteroid to save Earth and avert a catastrophic impact.
The DART spacecraft lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Wednesday at 1:21 a.m. Eastern time (or 10:21 p.m. local time) from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The rocket reached space before sending its reusable booster back toward the ocean to land on a SpaceX’s drone ship. It will take about an hour to deploy the spacecraft in orbit, and hours after that it will unfurl solar panels to power the vehicle on its journey.
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