CURRENT AFFAIRS

Detailed explanation-1: -The DART mission is NASA’s demonstration of kinetic impactor technology, impacting an asteroid to adjust its speed and path. DART is the first-ever space mission to demonstrate asteroid deflection by kinetic impactor. The spacecraft launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket out of Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Detailed explanation-2: -American Space Agency, NASA has announced to launch “asteroid-killing Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft” on November 24, 2021. Key Points The spacecraft will be launched, aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. It will be launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.

Detailed explanation-3: -Johns Hopkins APL built and operated the DART spacecraft and manages the DART mission for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office as a project of the agency’s Planetary Missions Program Office.

Detailed explanation-4: -Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) 26, 2022, DART impacted the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, a small body just 530 feet (160 meters) in diameter. It orbits a larger, 2, 560-foot (780-meter) asteroid called Didymos.

Detailed explanation-5: -The Asteroid Impact Mission (AIM) is a candidate mission currently undergoing preliminary design work. Launched in October 2020, AIM would travel to a binary asteroid system – the paired Didymos asteroids, which will come a comparatively close 11 million km to Earth in 2022.