SpaceX wins NASA contract to fly craft into asteroid

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been awarded a $69 million contract for a mission that will include flying a spacecraft into an asteroid.

NASA last week awarded the contract to SpaceX, selecting the company to provide services for NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission, NASA said in a statement.

The current target date for the mission is June 2021, and NASA plans to use one of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets, the agency said.

With the mission, NASA will look to “demonstrate a kinetic impact” by deliberately flying a spacecraft into a small asteroid, according to a description of the project on NASA’s website.

“The DART spacecraft will achieve the kinetic impact by deliberately crashing itself into the moonlet at a speed of approximately 6 km/s, with the aid of an onboard camera and sophisticated autonomous navigation software,” the website reads.

“The collision will change the speed of the moonlet in its orbit around the main body by a fraction of one percent, enough to be measured using telescopes on Earth.”