[pip08456]

What could possibly go wrong?

Nasa is planning to deliberately crash a spacecraft into an asteroid to test its ability to alter its trajectory and avoid a potentially deadly future collision with Earth.

The space agency’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) will lift off next month aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, for a mission being likened to the plot of film Armageddon.

DART will be testing asteroid deflection capabilities by smashing into it at nearly 15,000 miles per hour in September 2022.

It is hoped the spacecraft it will change the speed of the asteroid, known as Didymoon, a fraction of a per cent, and subsequently alter its orbit.

Link wasn't paywalled for me.



https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-ne...test-defences/