DART Range Background What should we do if we find a dangerous asteroid on course to hit Earth? There are a number of possible deflection techniques, ranging from extreme (a nuclear blast) to benign (a heavy spacecraft uses gravity to nudge the asteroid off-course). Somewhere in between is the kinetic impactor technique. The concept is simple: Slam one or more spacecraft into the asteroid at high speed to change its orbit and move Earth out of the crosshairs. This technique works