Robots used by NASA for deep space exploration are often technical marvels made to last.
The present mission of Lucy, which will last for the next 12 years, is to travel to a few space rocks close to Jupiter. Then there is DART.
It wasn't intended for DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) to advance solar system research for decades.
DART is NASA's trial run of a planetary defense system designed to slam spacecraft into approaching asteroids to steer them away from Earth.
The DART mission's goal was straightforward: NASA wanted to know if humanity could collide with an asteroid without wiping out humans.
More frequently than we may imagine, asteroids—which vary in size from refrigerators to automobiles—hit our planet.