‘Dart’ mission started: NASA probe should crash into asteroids

WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) – For the first time, the US space agency NASA launched a probe that is intended to crash deliberately into an asteroid and thereby change its trajectory. The aircraft took off on Wednesday morning using a “Falcon 9” rocket from the US state of California, as announced by NASA. The probe is scheduled to hit the asteroid Dimorphos next October.

Nasa hopes that the “Dart” (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission, which costs around 330 million dollars (around 290 million euros), will provide information on how the earth could be protected from approaching asteroids. According to NASA calculations, Dimorphos, which has a diameter of around 160 meters, does not pose a threat to the earth at the moment./cah/DP/eas

Source: dpa-AFX