https:// futurism.com/ai-journalist-media-bias-news-knowhere/

Is this to knock out future rogue satellites?

https:// www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/space-scientists-have-big-plans-avert-asteroid-apocalypse-ncna863106

The team presented its findings last month, and outlined a concept for a Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response.

HAMMER would be like a planetary defense shield: a fleet of spacecraft that would either bash directly into a dangerous asteroid or set off nuclear charges to deflect it. Barbee calls the HAMMER study “the first steps towards designing spacecraft systems for asteroid deflection.”

In fact, the next step in planetary defense is already underway at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Lab. There, a team is developing a mission called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, which is scheduled to launch around 2020. It’s the first real-world embodiment of the HAMMER concept.

The 1,100-pound DART craft has thrusters, a camera, navigation software, and that’s about it. Its design can be simple because its job is simple: find an asteroid and fly into it at full speed. Such a device is technically known as a kinetic impactor, but you can think of it as a battering ram in space.