NASA, SpaceX Launch DART

stinger608

Supreme [H]ardness
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Sep 13, 2009
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an anyone say Armageddon? This could be the answer to future meteor impacts to earth.

"NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), the world’s first full-scale mission to test technology for defending Earth against potential asteroid or comet hazards, launched Wednesday at 1:21 a.m. EST on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California."

"DART will show that a spacecraft can autonomously navigate to a target asteroid and intentionally collide with it – a method of deflection called kinetic impact. The test will provide important data to help better prepare for an asteroid that might pose an impact hazard to Earth, should one ever be discovered. LICIACube, a CubeSat riding with DART and provided by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), will be released prior to DART’s impact to capture images of the impact and the resulting cloud of ejected matter. Roughly four years after DART’s impact, ESA’s (European Space Agency) Hera project will conduct detailed surveys of both asteroids, with particular focus on the crater left by DART’s collision and a precise determination of Dimorphos’ mass."


This test is suppose to hit it's target some time next year.

If you would like to read more about this, check it out on NASA's site here:

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-spacex-launch-dart-first-test-mission-to-defend-planet-earth
 
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