DART Spacecraft Arrival

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft, packed in its shipping container, arrives by truck at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Oct. 2, 2021. DART will be transported to the Astrotech Space Operations Facility where workers will put the spacecraft through a series of final tests and checkouts to confirm it is ready for launch. DART is the first mission to test technologies for preventing an impact of Earth by a hazardous asteroid. The mission is targeted to launch on Nov. 23, 2021, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy Space Center, America’s multi-user spaceport, is managing the launch.