The mission's launch is currently scheduled for the first half of 2026.

"NEO Surveyor will have the capability to rapidly accelerate the rate at which NASA is able to discover asteroids and comets that could pose a hazard to the Earth, and it is being designed to discover 90 percent of asteroids 140 meters (459 feet) in size or larger within a decade of being launched," said Mike Kelley, NEO Surveyor program scientist at NASA Headquarters, in a statement.

In 2010, NASA completed its goal of discovering 90% of all near-Earth objects larger than 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) in size.

The agency was then directed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Act of 2005 to find 90% of NEOs larger than 140 meters (459 feet).

NEO Surveyor would allow observations to continue day and night, specifically targeting regions where NEOs that could pose a hazard might be found and accelerating the progress toward the Congressional goal."

The ability to discover and characterize potentially hazardous NEOs also allows astronomers to track these objects.

It went undetected because the asteroid came from the same direction and path as the sun.

The NEO Surveyor will use infrared sensors that can help astronomers find these objects -- even ones that may approach Earth during the day from the direction of the sun.

This isn't something that's possible using ground-based observatories.

"By searching for NEOs closer to the direction of the Sun, NEO Surveyor would help astronomers discover impact hazards that could approach Earth from the daytime sky," said Amy Mainzer, principal investigator for NEO Surveyor at the University of Arizona and professor in the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, in a statement.

In Greek, Didymos means "twin," which was used to describe how the larger asteroid, which is nearly half a mile (805 meters) across, is orbited by a smaller moon that is 525 feet (160 meters) in diameter called Dimorphos, which means "two forms."

In late 2022, Didymos and Dimorphos will be relatively close to Earth and within 6,835,083 miles (11 million kilometers) of our planet -- the perfect time for the DART mission to occur.