In a 2nd September 2019 press release by the European Space Agency, it is reported that :-
Quote:
Originally Posted by ESA, 2 Sept 2019
Asteroid researchers and spacecraft engineers from the US, Europe and around the world will gather in Rome next week to discuss the latest progress in their common goal: an ambitious double-spacecraft mission to deflect an asteroid in space, to prove the technique as a viable method of planetary defence.
This combined mission is known as the Asteroid Impact Deflection Assessment, or AIDA for short. Its purpose is to deflect the orbit of the smaller body of the double Didymos asteroids between Earth and Mars through an impact by one spacecraft. Then a second spacecraft will survey the crash site and gather the maximum possible data on the effect of this collision.
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by ESA
NASA’s contribution to AIDA, the Double Asteroid Impact Test, or DART spacecraft, is already under construction for launch in summer 2021, to collide with its target at 6.6 km/s in September 2022. Flying along with DART will be an Italian-made miniature CubeSat called LICIACube (Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids) to record the moment of impact.
|
Full press release here, pictures, video :-
https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/S...oid_deflection