Watch Live: NASA Crashes DART Spacecraft Into an Asteroid (on Purpose)

NASA is set to crash a space probe into an asteroid in an attempt to change its orbit.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) will deliberately ram into minor-planet moon Dimorphos (of the double asteroid Didymos) to assess the potential of using a spacecraft’s impact momentum to deflect a wandering star that’s on a collision course with Earth.

NASA says DART’s target asteroid—the binary, near-Earth system Didymos, comprising 530-foot-diameter Dimorphos and 2,560-foot namesake Didymos—is not a threat to our planet. But it is “a perfect testing ground to see if intentionally crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid is an effective way to change its course, should an Earth-threatening asteroid be discovered in the future,” according to(Opens in a new window) the agency’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office.

Launched in November 2021, the approximately 1,320-pound DART spacecraft will be 6.8 million miles from Earth when it reaches its target—at which point it’ll be traveling at about 4 miles per second and relying on an autonomous onboard navigator to stay on course.

Keeping watch from afar will be a DART “photographer” known as the LICIACube(Opens in a new window) (Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging Asteroids), which is programmed to document the effects of the impact, “capturing unique images of the asteroid surface as well as the debris ejected from the newly formed crater,” NASA says.

The Italian Space Agency’s LICIACube (pronounced LEE-cha-cube) deployed from the DART spacecraft on Sept. 11. Its on-board optical cameras—LUKE (LICIACube Unit Key Explorer) and LEIA (LICIACube Explorer Imaging for Asteroid)—will snap photos just two or three minutes after impact, capturing the ejecta plum and moonlet’s opposite hemisphere, which DART can’t see.

Following the strike, a team of investigators will(Opens in a new window) compare results of DART’s kinetic impact with Dimorphos to detailed computer simulations of kinetic impacts on asteroids, assessing how to use similar mitigation strategies in future planetary defense scenarios. Scientists expect the collision to shorten the smaller asteroid’s orbital period by several minutes—long enough for the effects to be observed and measured using telescopes on Earth.

The impact is currently scheduled for 7:14 p.m. ET. NASA’s coverage begins at 4:30 p.m. ET in the video above, while a live feed from the DART spacecraft will go live at 5:30 p.m. ET, viewable in the video below. A post-impact press briefing is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET.