Behind the Spacecraft: NASA's DART, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test⁣ ⁣ We're crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid... on purpose!⁣ ⁣ Our #DARTmission is a first-of-its-kind #PlanetaryDefense test to change the motion of an asteroid in space so that we could use this technique if an asteroid were ever discovered to be a threat to Earth. (There are no known threats.)⁣ ⁣ The DART, or Double Asteroid Redirection Test, mission is a test of a technique that could be used to mitigate the threat of an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, should one be discovered in the future. DART’s target is not a threat to Earth. While no known asteroid larger than 140 meters in size has a significant chance to hit Earth for the next 100 years, only about 40 percent of those asteroids have been found as of October 2021.⁣ ⁣ DART is targeted to launch at 1:20 a.m. EST (05:20 UTC), Nov. 23, 2021 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.⁣ ⁣ Credit: NASA/Producer...