Transatlantic space team to stop asteroids hitting Earth

THE European Space Agency (ESA) is planning to team up with Nasa to stop asteroids hitting Earth.

Teams from Nasa, in the US, and the ESA are to meet in Rome next week to work together on an idea that would see a spacecraft slamming into potentially dangerous asteroids, to deflect them away from a collision with the planet.

Asteroid researchers and spacecraft engineers are gathering in a bid to prove that their “ambitious” technique, known as the Asteroid Impact Deflection Assessment, is a viable method of planetary defence.

The aim is to target the smaller body of the double Didymos asteroids between Earth and Mars.

One spacecraft would be sent to hit an asteroid, while another would be sent out to observe and gather data from the crash site.

Nasa has already started building the Double Asteroid Impact Test (known as Dart) spacecraft, which is scheduled to launch in summer 2021 and is aiming to reach its target of 6.6km/s in September 2022.

An Italian-made satellite, known as LICIACUBE, would travel alongside to capture the moment of impact.

ESA would then carry out a mission called Hera, which will take measurements of the asteroid’s size and the crater shape, which researchers can use to figure out whether the technique will work against a real threat.

However, Hera’s final design work is yet to be complete, and Europe’s space ministers still need to make a decision on the proposal in November.

Ian Carnelli, who is responsible for managing Hera at ESA, said: “An international effort is the appropriate way forward – planetary defence is in everyone’s interest.

“Hera will also be the first mission to rendezvous with a binary asteroid system, a mysterious class of object believed to make up around 15 per cent of all known asteroids.”