Technicians prepare to move NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft from a shipping container onto a work stand inside the Astrotech Space Operations Facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California in this image from Oct. 4, 2021.
Technicians prepare to move NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft from a shipping container onto a work stand inside the Astrotech Space Operations Facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California in this image from Oct. 4, 2021.
DART was launched on Nov. 23, 2021, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg. The spacecraft will intentionally smash into the moonlet Dimorphos on Sept. 26, 2022, to see if this method of asteroid deflection—known as the kinetic impactor technique—would be a viable way to protect our planet if an asteroid on a collision course with Earth were discovered in the future.
Image Credit: USSF 30th Space Wing/Aaron Taubm