NASA’s DART spacecraft was encapsulated inside the payload fairing of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Nov. 16. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman
A small NASA spacecraft set to launch on a collision course with an asteroid has been encapsulated inside the payload fairing of its Falcon 9 rocket for blastoff from California this week, a mission that will mark SpaceX’s first launch with a solar system science probe.