NASA has shifted the DART project, which projects a vehicle designed to "bounce off" the asteroid toward Earth, to the next phase of "pre-design" phase.
The risk that humanity will die from a collision with the asteroid is small, but high enough to be worth worrying about. If you do not believe in it, ask for the dinosaur's opinion. That's why NASA is particularly interested in working on a technology that could strike an asteroid coming to Earth. Now, its latest project related to this issue - DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) has gone from conceptual development to pre-design.
DART is a vehicle whose size can be compared to the size of a refrigerator. As the researchers say, it is supposed to be the so-called "kinetic impactor." It was designed to collide with the side of the asteroid, changing the trajectory of its flight.
If you think that such a small space ship would not have a significant impact on the massive asteroid, you are right. If such an object catches up early enough, even a slight change in its course should be enough to fly at a safe distance from Earth.
"DART is a key step with which we will be able to demonstrate that we are able to protect Earth from future asteroids," said Andy Cheng, DART project engineer.
Cheng and his colleagues intend to test their vehicle on a small, non-threatening asteroid in 2024. This asteroid will be 65803 Didymos. It has been closely watched since 2003. DART will approach the asteroid and then use the autonomous target system. Ultimately, at a speed higher than the speed of the fired cartridge, the vehicle will hit the asteroid's body while the investigators will look at the results. The whole thing looks like this:
Source NASA