--- title: NASA Has A Mission to Capture, Redirect an Asteroid description: NASA released more information on its Asteroid Redirect Mission canonical: https://time.com/2905039/heres-how-nasa-plans-to-capture-an-asteroid/ author: Laura Stampler article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-06-20T15:18:15.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:10:59.496Z og:title: Here's How NASA Plans to Capture an Asteroid og:description: Don't worry — not because it's crashing towards earth og:url: https://time.com/2905039/heres-how-nasa-plans-to-capture-an-asteroid/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8fd8dae9d848a5c1/69869896f983e76dbc04e808/unknown1.jpeg?branch=production&width=185&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 185 og:image:height: 104 og:image:alt: armageddon og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's How NASA Plans to Capture an Asteroid twitter:description: Don't worry — not because it's crashing towards earth twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8fd8dae9d848a5c1/69869896f983e76dbc04e808/unknown1.jpeg?branch=production&width=185&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Here's How NASA Plans to Capture an Asteroid > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Jun 20, 2014 3:18 PM UTC  Armageddon by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Jun 20, 2014 3:18 PM UTC [Asteroid Redirect Mission Concept Animation.](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x13ogsw%5Fasteroid-redirect-mission-concept-animation%5Ftech) _by_ [_mistersexybuzz_](http://www.dailymotion.com/mistersexybuzz) NASA has a special project of Bruce Willis proportions: It’s going to have [astronauts redirect an asteroid.](http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/20/5827310/nasa-asteroid-capture-2019) (Don’t worry, not because it’s plummeting towards earth—it’s for _science_.) And the mission isn’t mere speculation. Although the project has been discussed for a while, NASA announced that it will pick an asteroid in 2019 and the spaceship is expected to launch in 2019\. In the following years, astronauts will stalk and capture the asteroid, sending it off into a lunar orbit. You can see how NASA plans to pull it off in the above video. Michael Bay literally cannot wait! Hopefully this will all be streaming, because, in the words of Aerosmith, [“I don’t want to miss a thing.”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG%5FVMJg7oMM&feature=kp) ([h/t: The Verge](http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/20/5827310/nasa-asteroid-capture-2019)) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2905039/heres-how-nasa-plans-to-capture-an-asteroid/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2905039/heres-how-nasa-plans-to-capture-an-asteroid/"},"headline":"Here's How NASA Plans to Capture an Asteroid","datePublished":"2014-06-20T15:18:15.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:10:59.496Z","description":"Don't worry — not because it's crashing towards earth","url":"https://time.com/2905039/heres-how-nasa-plans-to-capture-an-asteroid/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Space","NASA","Science topic","astronauts"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8fd8dae9d848a5c1/69869896f983e76dbc04e808/unknown1.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Laura Stampler","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8fd8dae9d848a5c1/69869896f983e76dbc04e808/unknown1.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"armageddon","caption":"","creditText":"Armageddon","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2905039/heres-how-nasa-plans-to-capture-an-asteroid/","name":"Here's How NASA Plans to Capture an Asteroid"}}]}] ```