Syllabus Section: Science and Technology (GS Paper III)

Importance: UPSC Prelims and UPSC Mains

Why in News?

 NASA will launch the agency’s first planetary defence test mission named the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART).

About:

 

• DART is a planetary defence-driven test of technologies for preventing an impact of Earth by a hazardous asteroid.
• The main aim of the mission is to test the newly developed technology that would allow a spacecraft to crash into an asteroid and change its course.
• The spacecraft will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
• The target of the spacecraft is a small moonlet called Dimorphos (Greek for “two forms”). The spacecraft is expected to collide when it is 11 million km away from Earth.

• Dimorphos orbits a larger asteroid named Didymos (Greek for “twin”)

Source: Indian Express