Since 2017, NASA has been working on testing to see whether crashing a satellite into an asteroid can deflect the space rock from its trajectory. In 2019, the space agency roped in SpaceX for the mission. Now, SpaceX has shared that it has completed a static fire test and will be targeting November 23 as the launch date of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART).

On the day, NASA will “intentionally crash the DART spacecraft into an asteroid to see if that is an effective way to change its course, should an Earth-threatening asteroid be discovered in the future,” SpaceX tweeted.

Targeting a binary asteroid

A static fire test is one of the important steps in getting a launch vehicle ready to deploy, and it checks engine startup performance by measuring things such as temperature and pressure. With this stage being completed, SpaceX and NASA will take it to the launching stage.

DART is setting its target on a binary asteroid with two bodies called Didymos. Didymos B is about 160 meters, orbiting the larger Didymos A, which is 780 meters in size. The binary asteroid would have passed our planet safely in 2022 and again in 2024.

New era of interplanetary defense

DART will collide with the moonlet Dimorphos at speeds of 23,760 kph. The impact should be enough to change the orbital speed of the moonlet by a fraction of a percent. A slight change in speed would be enough to change the orbital period by several minutes. The mission is led by the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL).

The space agency has already categorized at least 23 objects that could potentially hit Earth in the next 100 years. Coming with a defense system is important to protect our planet from an Armageddon situation. It will be interesting to see how the mission goes. If this test is successful, it will start a new era of interplanetary defense systems.