NASAPress Releases

NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for Asteroid Redirect Test Mission

NASA has selected SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for the agency’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, the first-ever mission to demonstrate the capability to deflect an asteroid by colliding a spacecraft with it at high speed – a technique known as a kinetic impactor.

The total cost for NASA to launch DART is approximately $69 million, which includes the launch service and other mission related costs.

The DART mission currently is targeted to launch in June 2021 on a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. By using solar electric propulsion, DART will intercept the asteroid Didymos’ small moon in October 2022, when the asteroid will be within 11 million kilometers of Earth. 

NASA’s Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center in Florida will manage the SpaceX launch service. The DART Project office is located at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, and is managed by the Planetary Missions Program Office at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office in Washington.

For more information about NASA programs and missions, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov

Ben

I am the owner of Cerebral-overload.com and the Verizon Wireless Reviewer for Techburgh.com. My love of gadgets came from his lack of a Nintendo Game Boy when he was a child . I vowed from that day on to get his hands on as many tech products as possible. My approach to a review is to make it informative for the technofile while still making it understandable to everyone. Ben is a new voice in the tech industry and is looking to make a mark wherever he goes. When not reviewing products, I is also a 911 Telecommunicator just outside of Pittsburgh PA. Twitter: @gizmoboaks

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