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NASA is preparing to test a planetary defense system that could one day prevent a “dangerous asteroid” from crashing into Earth.
The the space agency announced on Tuesday the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission is expected to be launched via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on November 24 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
The mission will test an asteroid defense plan called the Kinetic Impactor Technique, which essentially involves shooting the asteroid at a speed of nearly 15,000 miles per hour to alter its trajectory.
“DART will be the first demonstration of the kinetic impactor technique to change the motion of an asteroid in space,” NASA said in a press release.
DART’s target will be a binary asteroid called Didymos. The asteroid system is made up of a 780 meter asteroid and a smaller “moonlet” measuring 160 meters in diameter.
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Using cameras and autonomous navigation, the spacecraft will deliberately crash into the moon at a speed of 6.6 kilometers per second, according to NASA.
“The collision will change the speed of the moon in its orbit around the main body by a fraction of a percent, but it will change the orbital period of the moon by several – enough to be observed and measured using telescopes. on Earth, ”the space agency said.
After about a year of cruising in space, the spacecraft is expected to hit Didymos’ moon in September 2022.
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