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This is what it should look like: It is the first planetary defense mission in space history.
On September 26, the "Dart" spacecraft is scheduled to hit the "Didymos" binary asteroid system, throwing the asteroid "Dimorphos" out of its orbit.
Andrea Riley is one of those responsible for the "Double Asteroid Redirection Test" - Dart for short.
Andrea Riley, NASA's Dart program director:
"We're constantly on the lookout for potential new asteroids and threats.
And the size of Dimorphos is in the class we're most concerned about - about 140 to 60 meters across.
So this test will give us confidence that we have a defense strategy in place should a threat ever be identified.”
The Dart probe was launched from California in November 2021.
With the crash, NASA wants to find out whether you can really distract an asteroid from its collision course with Earth.
Nancy Chabot, Director of Dart Coordination:
“It's those few hundred meter objects that are known not to pose a threat in the foreseeable future, but we have currently detected less than 50 percent of them.
So it makes sense to talk about this from a planetary defense perspective - something a few hundred meters across wouldn't trigger a global event.
But the regional devastation could be the size of a city or a small state or a small country, and that's why it's very devastating.”
Cameras on the probe are to record the impact on “Dimorphos” and send valuable data back to Earth.
Elena Adams, Nasa Systems Engineer:
“According to our calculations and the way we've been streaming so far, we're able to get images up to two and a half seconds before impact - or maybe even a second and a half before impact.
That means you really see it in real time.
You see the impact.”
Millions of people can follow the first kamikaze flight in space live in front of their screens.
