Don Quijote

ESA has begun studying a potential mission to send two spacecrafts to intercept a Near-Earth Object, impacting it, to change its orbit. The mission, dubbed Don Quijote, is a study mission to test technology and processes of preventing a natural disaster of an asteroid colliding with the Earth and killing us all. The current scenario being planned for the study mission, has two spacecrafts on separate interplanetary trajectories to the target asteroid. The first spacecraft, named Sancho, will arrive months early to orbit the asteroid and study it before and after the impact. The second spacecraft, named Hidalgo [title for a Spanish nobleman or knight], will be the impact craft sent to deflect the asteroid.