NASA announced it would be going Armageddon by launching a spacecraft targeted at an asteroid near Earth as part of a “planetary defense” test procedure.
The agency announced Monday it would launch its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission as a method to explore planetary defense. DART, launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, will be targeted toward the asteroid Didymos and its moonlet in an effort to redirect the asteroid, according to a press release.
The procedure is scheduled for 10:20 p.m. on Nov. 24 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
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The larger asteroid, Didymos, is roughly 780 meters (about half a mile) in size, while its moonlet, Dimorphos, is approximately 160 meters, according to NASA.
DART is set to collide with Dimorphos at a speed of roughly 15,000 miles per hour, with the hope it will change the motion of the asteroid “by a fraction of 1 percent,” according to the Washington Post.
While the asteroids do not pose any threat, Thomas Statler, a program scientist with NASA’s Science Mission Directorate’s Planetary Science Division, explained the test is to “make sure that we have the capabilities for that asteroid in the future, if there is one.”
“DART is our first full-scale attempt to demonstrate that we can change the motion of an asteroid in space,” Statler said. “Potentially as a way of defending Earth against the hazard of asteroid impacts.”
☄️ Reporters & producers: Apply now for media credentials for the planned November launch of our DART asteroid-redirect mission: https://t.co/I4IfSSo2IL pic.twitter.com/UjZ01r40Ci
— NASA (@NASA) October 4, 2021
“There is no known asteroid that has any chance of impacting Earth anytime in the next hundred years,” Statler added. “The asteroid that we are going to with DART is not a dangerous asteroid.”
Russian actress Yulia Peresild was launched on Tuesday to the International Space Station, where she will spend 12 days working on the first movie filmed in space, The Challenge.
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The Washington Examiner reached out to NASA for a statement but did not receive a response.
