NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (Dart) spacecraft is designed to be a one-hit-wonder. It will end its days by crashing into an asteroid at 24,000 kilometres per hour on September 26. Launched from Earth in November 2021, Dart is about the size of a bus and was created to test and prove our ability to defend the Earth from a dangerous asteroid.
Landing a direct hit on a target from 11 million kilometres away isn’t easy. But while this sounds far, the asteroid was actually selected by NASA because it is relatively close to Earth. This will give engineers the opportunity to test the spacecraft’s ability to operate itself in the final stages before the impact, as it crashes autonomously.
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