The spacecraft for the collision of an asteroid in 2022

Scientists from Europe and the U.S. to confidently move promote in their plans to make a deliberate collision of a spacecraft with a giant asteroid in 2022 to look into the depths of such visitations.

Ambitious European mission Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment, or AIDA, consisting of two satellites (one of which will be built by scientists from the U.S., and the second - the European Space Agency), is scheduled to start a three-year journey to the asteroid Didymus and his companion. Didim not dangerous for the Earth, so it is well suited for this kind of research, scientists said the mission at the 44th Annual Conference of the moon and planets, on Tuesday, March 19.

Didim is a system of two asteroids, linked together gravitationally. The main asteroid - a giant space rock with a diameter of 800 meters, and its companion is much less - its diameter is only 150 meters.

Of the two spacecraft mission AIDA: AIM and DART - the first will cost about 194 million dollars, and the second - about $ 150 million, NASA officials said.