The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission

DART is a planetary defense-driven test of technologies for preventing a threat to Earth by a hazardous asteroid. DART is the first-ever practical demonstration of the kinetic impactor technique to change the motion of an asteroid in space by striking the asteroid Dimorphos at high relative velocity and then observing the resulting change in its orbital period around Didymos, its parent asteroid. Having just launched at the end of Nov 2021, DART impacted Dimorphos on Sep 26^th at 6:14pm CDT.

K. Scott Bellamy (Mission Manager, Planetary Missions Program Office, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center)