NASA launches test mission of asteroid-deflecting DART spacecraft

DART's target is an asteroid "moonlet" the size of a football stadium that orbits a chunk of rock five times larger in a binary asteroid system named Didymos, the Greek word for twin

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, spacecraft onboard, sits during sunrise, Tuesday, Nov. 23, 2021, at Space Launch Complex 4E, Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. Picture: Bill Ingalls/NASA via AP

A spacecraft that must ultimately crash to succeed was launched late on Tuesday from California on a NASA mission to demonstrate the world's first planetary defense system, designed to deflect an asteroid from a potential doomsday collision with Earth.

The DART spacecraft soared into the night sky at 10.21pm Pacific time on Tuesday (6.21am Wednesday Irish time) from Vandenberg US Space Force Base, about 150 miles northwest of Los Angeles, carried aboard a SpaceX-owned Falcon 9 rocket.