NASA Launches Spacecraft to Test Asteroid Defense Concept

Double asteroid redirection test (DART) mission promo. NASA/Johns Hopkins APL via AP/Screenshot via The Epoch Times

This week, NASA launched a spacecraft on a mission to smash into an asteroid and test whether it would be possible to knock a speeding space rock off course if one were to threaten Earth.

The DART spacecraft, short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in a $330 million project with echoes of the Bruce Willis movie “Armageddon.”