Asteroid Impact Deflection Assessment

Explanation :

• The Asteroid Impact Deflection Assessment (AIDA) project seeks to explore the defence mechanism through deflection. It is an ambitious double-spacecraft mission to deflect an asteroid in space.
• AIDA is a joint collaboration between European Space Agency (ESA), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Observatoire de la Côte d´Azur (OCA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration(NASA), and the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
• The purpose of this two-spacecraft system is to deflect the orbit of one of the bodies that make up the binary asteroid Didymos, which orbits between Earth and Mars. While one spacecraft will collide with a binary Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA), the other will observe the impact and survey the crash site in order to gather as much data as possible about this method of asteroid defense.

Source: Civil Services Chronicle Online