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SpaceX launches innovative NASA spacecraft on a collision course

DART is heading for its target.

A blurry image of the sun and a cube-shaped spacecraft.
The DART spacecraft as seen from the Falcon 9's second stage, Credit: NASA

SpaceX launched their first interplanetary mission from Vandenburg Space Force Base in California at 10:20pm on November 23rd, 2021, pacific time. (It was 1:20am on November 24th on the east coast.) The mission is called Double Asteroid Rendezvous Test (DART) and is the first planetary defense mission to ever launch. It will help NASA develop the technologies to divert an asteroid that is on a collision course with Earth by crashing a small spacecraft into the moon of an asteroid. This will adjust it's orbit around the sun.

The spacecraft is very unique and is testing out multiple new technologies. These include a next-generation ion engine and a type of antenna that has never been used on a spacecraft, a Radial Line Slot Array. Read my page about the mission.

A Falcon 9 lifting off during the night
Dart launching on a Falcon 9 rocket, Credit: SpaceX, CC BY-NC 2.0, cropped

SpaceX used their primary rocket, the Falcon 9. The 9 in the name comes from the 9 Merlin engines that the rocket has on it's first stage. SpaceX has pioneered reusable technology using the Falcon 9. The first stage of the rocket can autonomously land near the launch site or on a barge in the ocean. The rocket can then be refurbished and reused in a few weeks. SpaceX also fishes the fairing halves out of the ocean and reuses them. During this recent launch, SpaceX succeeded in landing their booster.

DART will collide with it's target asteroid in October of next year.





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