There’s going to be an asteroid crash in space — and it’s fully intentional. NASA and SpaceX have teamed up to launch what NASA calls a “mission of” “planetary defense.”
DART, or the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, took to the skies at 10:20 p.m. on November 23 from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base.
DART hitched a ride to space on the back of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
The Falcon 9 rocket returned to Earth about nine minutes after lift-off, but DART’s mission will be much longer.
DART will take approximately ten years to reach Dimorphos (525 feet wide), an asteroid with a diameter of 525 feet. DART will then attempt to maneuver the asteroid off course by soaring at 15,000 mph.
While this asteroid is not a direct threat to Earth right now, NASA scientists want to be ready for any future asteroids that might have some strange ideas about harming Earth.
DART costs about $330 Million, but NASA and SpaceX think that’s a small price to pay for testing out a technology that may someday save the world.