Nasa and Esa collaborate to split the cost One spacecraft hits the asteroid, the other measures what happens. Included in that will be the creation of a comprehensive €200m a year programme of planetary defence. Esa is an independent organisation from the EU, and the UK has every intention of staying a member no matter what happens on 31 October. Attending the meeting is not something that depends on Brexit. This November, science ministers from the various countries that belong to the European Space Agency (Esa) will gather in Seville, Spain, to decide the agency’s funding and priorities for the next three years. The UK government now classes space as one of the nation’s 13 critical infrastructure sectors. The truth is our way of life utterly relies on space. Explosions on the sun create “space weather” that can play havoc with our satellites and other electrical systems, while the growing amount of space debris imperils the satellites that we all invisibly rely on. It’s hardly news we want to hear at a time of so many domestic problems, but the threat from near-Earth asteroids is just one of a string of dangers that the planet and its technology are facing from space.
It’s an attempt to deflect an asteroid as a test of what to do if we spot a similar space rock on a collision course with our planet. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (Dart) is designed to smash headlong into its target. N ext year, Nasa will launch what all involved hope will be the most impactful space mission to date.