Follow Live Coverage of NASA’s Asteroid-Striking DART Mission

Late this evening, at 23:14 UTC, the DART spacecraft will impact with Dydimos, testing a possible way to redirect an asteroid, providing a feasible maneuver for planet Earth defense from incoming asteroids.

DART was launched on Nov. 23, 2021, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg. The spacecraft will intentionally smash into the moonlet Didymos on Sept. 26, 2022, to see if this method of asteroid deflection—known as the kinetic impactor technique—would be a viable way to protect our planet if an asteroid on a collision course with Earth were discovered in the future.