The American space agency NASA is preparing to launch a spacecraft that will attempt to strike an asteroid to see how the crash affects the space object’s path. The test mission is designed to demonstrate a possible method for changing the direction of asteroids that are considered threats to Earth. NASA is calling the world’s fist planetary defense mission the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART. The DART spacecraft is set to launch November 24 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The DART spacecraft was built and is operated by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland. The project is directed by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office.
