NASA probe ready to slam into an asteroid this month in landmark planetary defense test

The milestone comes courtesy of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, which launched just last fall. On Sept. 26, DART will slam headfirst into a small asteroid, the rare case when a spacecraft’s destruction is the desired outcome. The mission is in the name of planetary defense, which seeks to protect Earth from any potential asteroid impacts; scientists hope that should a dangerous asteroid threaten the planet in the future, a mission like DART could avert the disaster.

Op-ed | Sealing the ISS Airlock Behind Putin

At NASA, it has been business as usual. While the Western world and much of the global space industry severed ties with Russia over the war, NASA’s administrator and key managers for the International Space Station have continued to embrace the pariah state as a valued partner. Doing so lends Putin’s regime a highly undeserved place of respect and undermines all the other efforts to defend Ukraine and the West from Russia.