At a speed of 6.5 kilometers per second, DART will crash into the asteroid Dimorphos. The collision will have the same destructive force as detonating three tons of TNT.

From September 26 until October 1, NASA will conduct an experiment using its DART spacecraft to crash with an asteroid in an attempt to gently alter its course and see whether this would be effective in preventing an asteroid from colliding with Earth.

The DART spacecraft is scheduled to crash with the asteroid Dimorphos at a speed of 6.5 kilometers per second, releasing an amount of energy that is roughly equivalent to the detonation of three tons of trinitrotoliene (TNT).

This mission is groundbreaking because it will be the first of its kind to test Earth’s defense capabilities against asteroids and comets. On November 24th, the mission’s dedicated spacecraft took out towards the planet Dimorphosa.

Another exciting upcoming mission for NASA is the launch of the Artemis lunar exploration system on the 29th of this month from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

It’s the first step toward creating a lunar outpost and a test trip without humans on board. In its roughly three-week voyage, the spacecraft will cover around 450,600 kilometers away from Earth.

The Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina, American astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, and Japanese cosmonaut Koichi Wakata will launch on September 29 from the Kennedy Space Center as part of the NASA and SpaceX project Crew-5. They’re going to spend six months doing research aboard the ISS’s microgravity laboratory.

On November 1st, NASA and NOAA will launch the JPSS-2 weather and climate satellite mission, which will circle Earth from pole to pole and pass the Equator nearly 14 times a day, giving worldwide coverage. Ideally, you’d finish it twice a day. It will gather information on the atmosphere at an altitude of 824 kilometers, which will be used to improve weather forecasts, prepare for severe weather, and understand the effects of global warming.