Impactor Mission

An impactor is a spacecraft designed to impact a celestial body. Sometimes the plume produced by the impact is studied by ground-based equipment and/or other spacecraft. Impactors can help characterize the surface of a celestial body or access the subsurface for scientific investigation. Impactors can also theoretically be used to deflect asteroids from their current trajectory into a preferred trajectory. (Bhaskaran and Kennedy 2014)