The mission, called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) , aims to demonstrate NASA's capability to deflect any space rocks that are found to be on a collision course with Earth. NASA has chosen a near-Earth asteroid called Didymos to use as target practice. The DART spacecraft will be launched on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in June 2021, and arrive at the asteroid 16 months later, when it is within 11 million kilometres (6.8 million miles) of Earth. NASA said the total cost for DART is approximately $69 million (£52 million), which includes the launch service and other mission related costs. "We're excited that NASA has selected the vehicle to launch DART on its important planetary defense mission," said DART Mission Systems Engineer Elena Adams.

Source: Daily Mirror April 15, 2019 15:26 UTC