NASA's DART Mission Launches: Defending our Planet from an Asteroid

[turbinetree]

By: Tatum Lenberg

NASA’s first mission to test asteroid deflection technology launched yesterday. DART, or Double Asteroid Redirection Test, is a mission to slam a rocket into an asteroid… hopefully altering its path.

November 24, 2021

On Wednesday, November 23, at 1:21 am ET, NASA launched the DART mission from Vandenberg Space Force base in California riding a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. This is the first-ever planetary defense mission in human history.

The DART spacecraft is 1,200 pounds, roughly the size of a refrigerator, and expected to crash into an asteroid named Dimorphos (at 15,000 miles per hour) between late September and early October of 2022.

If successful, this $324 million mission will demonstrate humanity’s ability to redirect a potentially dangerous asteroid from slamming into our home planet. If the results are favorable, NASA may use this strategy in the future against an asteroid headed towards earth.

Link to tweet

https://www.discovery.com/space/nasa-s-dart-mission-launches--defending-our-planet-from-an-aster

[WarGamer]

1. the F9 is a beast...

Cool experiment.

[turbinetree]

2. Yeah when your generating 1.7 million pounds of thrust at sea level....

[The Magistrate]

3. I Do Hope Someone Carried The Three In That One Column, Sir

I feel sure they did, mind, but hope still seems wanted. It would be a ghastly thing to fuck up.

[turbinetree]

4. I use to and still do play darts....I just wonder if they have two more

I was watching Bill Nye yesterday talk about this .....strawberry and blueberry rotating around the strawberry and strawberry leaf (satellite to strike blueberry).....