One of my kids is an astronautical engineer at nasa. We had a family chat going as we all watched it live. (We do that frequently for big launches)
It’s a cool way to keep the family together. My trucker son even joined from his cab. (Of course he didn’t watch because he was driving)
We all think the mission is kind of dumb
Everything about this mission could have been modeled on a computer. The Laws of Physics work in space as well as on the Earth.
The only variable they couldn’t model is “Can they actually hit it?”
But this rock is in a known orbit, and probably has been for millennia.
A dangerous rock is one that suddenly comes in from the outer fringes and intersects Earth’s orbit at a collision point.
THEN you have to do all kinds of calculations to get the trajectory and speed exactly right and the calculations to intersect that rock at exactly the right time and angle, with enough mass to either destroy it or nudge it into a different trajectory......................