A spacecraft is set to smash into an asteroid to test whether deflecting a space rock could one day protect Earth from a potentially catastrophic impact.

If all goes according to plan, the ESA’s 700-kilogram (1,543-pound) Hera spacecraft will slam into Didymos B, a small asteroid that orbits the much larger Didymos A, at a speed of 14,000 kilometers per hour (8,700 miles per hour). The high-speed impact is designed to create an artificial crater on the surface of Didymos B.

Over the next two years, Hera will study the artificial crater using its suite of cameras and sensors.

In particular, Hera will search for signs that the impact has altered Didymos B’s orbit around Didymos A. This information could help scientists better understand how to deflect an asteroid if it were on course to hit Earth.

“To successfully defend our planet from future asteroid impacts, we need to be able to change the motion of an asteroid in a controlled manner,” said ESA Director General Jan Wörner in a press release.

“Hera will pave the way for future missions by testing technologies required for resource utilization on an asteroid and demonstrating innovative methods for altering an asteroid’s path.”

Not on a collision course

While Didymo A is not on a collision course with Earth, it offers scientists an ideal target for testing out what could one day be used to save our planet from a devastating impact.

“This is exactly why we’re doing this mission,” said Paolo Martino, Hera project manager at ESA’s technical center in Noordwijk, Netherlands, in the press release.

“It’s the first step in demonstrating how we can protect our planet from future hazardous encounters.”

Hera isn’t going it alone on this journey—it’s being accompanied by two CubeSats that will act as eyewitnesses to the impact. One of these CubeSats is called LICIACube and was built by university students in Belgium.

The other CubeSat, called DART+LANCE+, was built by NASA. Both CubeSats will take pictures and collect data during Hera’s flyby of Didymos B following the impact.

“The beauty of using CubeSats for this kind of rendezvous mission is that they are considerably cheaper than traditional satellites.”

By better understanding how to deflect an incoming asteroid , we can protect our planet from disastrous consequences .

This experimental collision is just the first step in learning how we can change an asteroid ‘s path.