NASA launches DART spacecraft under 'Planetary Defense Mission'

Washington – On Wednesday, NASA launched the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft into space to test the technology to change the path of an asteroid coming towards Earth. The spacecraft is part of NASA’s Planetary Defense Mission. Under this initiative, preparations are being made to set up security measures against the elements likely to enter the Earth’s orbit and cause harm. The launch of Dart is the first campaign to be carried out under the Planetary Defence Mission.

Dart was successfully launched around 6.15 am on Wednesday with the help of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The spacecraft will travel 6.8 million miles and hit the asteroid ‘Dimorphos’. Although the asteroid does not pose a direct threat to Earth, the effects of the collision will be significant for Earth’s future security, NASA said. Dart’s mission is ten months long and the spacecraft will hit the asteroid in September next year.

‘Dart will only be changing the period of the orbit of Dimorphos by a tiny amount. And really that’s all that’s needed if an asteroid is discovered well ahead of time,’ Kelly Fast, a senior official at NASA said. Dimorphos is a 160-meter-diameter asteroid said to be accompanied by a giant asteroid, Didymos.

At present, more than 27,000 asteroids and other elements are orbiting in space and are unlikely to collide with Earth in the near future. But if a dangerous asteroid is discovered in the future, the findings from Dart could be useful to prevent it, NASA researchers claim. The Dart mission will use Kinetic Impact technology and the spacecraft will hit at a speed of six kilometres per second.