You can imagine what would happen if a large asteroid like the recently identified 2004 VD17, which is about 500m in Diameter and has a mass of 1000 million tons, would hit the Earth.

The European Space Agency (ESA) will be addressing this problem by launching the Don Quijote mission in the year 2011. This mission will slam a impactor probe into an asteroid while a spacecraft will orbit around the asteroid to study its aftermath.

The Don Quijote mission was designed by three industrial teams.

• A team with Alcatel Alenia Space as prime contractor, which includes subcontractors and consultants from across Europe and Canada. Alcatel Alenia Space developed the Huygens Titan probe and is currently working on the ExoMars mission
• A consortium led by EADS Astrium, which includes Deimos Space from Spain and consultants from several European countries. This team has worked on many successful ESA interplanetary missions such as Rosetta, Mars and Venus Express
• A team led by QinetiQ (UK), which includes companies and partners in Sweden and Belgium and draws on their expertise in mini and micro satellites including ESA's SMART-1 and Proba projects

In October the three teams will present their studies to the ESA and an international panel of experts to be reviewed. If all goes well, the Don Quijote will launch in 2011.