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In case there was an asteroid coming towards\h
Earth, you're there, you can actually stop it.\h\h

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I mean that's kind of fantastic. I'm Elena Adams\h
and I led the team that built the spacecraft to go\h\h

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and crash into an asteroid. Behind me you see the\h
spacecraft. Once the solar arrays are deployed it's\h\h

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going to be the size of a school bus. As the\h
solar array opens up, it's going to swing out\h\h

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in this direction. DART is the mission to go\h
and hit an asteroid and see if we can change its\h\h

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trajectory just a little bit. But in space "just\h
a little bit" is just enough to make an asteroid\h\h

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actually miss us if an asteroid was actually\h
coming towards us. To me the most important thing\h\h

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and the most exciting thing is all the technical\h
challenges. My job is primarily to make sure\h\h

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all the systems on the spacecraft work together.\h
On top you see the NEXT-C thruster. Over here\h\h

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is our star tracker and then over here is our\h
high-gain antenna. My job is to make sure we hit.\h\h

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My job is to make sure we launch. My job is to\h
make sure we're able to receive data back. There's\h\h

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DRACO on the bottom of the spacecraft. As well\h
of course is integration and test. As a mother\h\h

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of three boys now we spent lots of Saturdays\h
watching the spacecraft actually being integrated.\h\h

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They watched solar arrays deploy for the first\h
time just because we were all on Zoom at all\h\h

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hours of the day and night. I do Taekwondo I'm\h
working on my black belt and hopefully I will\h\h

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get it right around the same time as the launch of\h
DART so it's also been a very long journey for me.\h\h

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Taekwondo kind of teaches you a lot of respect\h
and a lot of patience for things you just need\h\h

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to keep doing and making it better and better\h
and it's the same with space missions. \h

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Go DART!\hWoo-hoo!

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The dinosaurs are made completely extinct\h
by an asteroid impact so many years ago.\h\h