NASA Launches Mission to Protect Earth

NASA is working on a new mission to protect Earth. DART mission was designed, developed, and managed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA Planetary Defense Coordination Office — is the world’s first full-scale mission to test technology for defending the planet against potential asteroid or comet hazards.

The space craft launched Wednesday morning at 1:21 a.m. EST from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.NASA larger planetary defense strategy, DART will send a spacecraft to impact a known asteroid that is not a threat to Earth, to slightly change its motion in a way that can be accurately measured via ground-based telescopic observations.

DART will show that a spacecraft can autonomously navigate to a target asteroid and intentionally collide with it. It’s a method called kinetic impact, and the test will provide important data to help humankind better prepare for an asteroid that might post an impact hazard to Earth, should one ever be discovered.

APL Director Ralph Semmel said that the Double Asteroid Redirection Test represents the best of APL’s approach to space science and engineering: identify the challenge, devise an innovative and cost-effective technical solution to address it, and work relentlessly to solve it. They are are honored that NASA has entrusted APL with this critical mission, where the fate of the world really could rest on our success.