VTT making space history: Knowledge of asteroid composition to help avert collisions
Press release 17 December, 2020 The European Space Agency ESA and NASA are working together to determine how the Earth might be protected against the threat posed by asteroids by altering their trajectory. VTT is taking part in the project by determining the mineral composition of the asteroids. This is happening for the first time with a nanosatellite mounted hyperspectral camera.The joint ESA and NASA mission will test deflecting asteroids using a kinetic impactor – a probe that is steered to collide with an asteroid. The impactor is called DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) and