Kerbal Space Program (KSP) have joined forces with NASA to create a new mission that sounds eerily similar to movies like Armageddon and Deep Impact. Even better, it is based on an actual NASA mission to take place in the next decade.

Requiring players to re-direct an asteroid, not necessarily heading for Earth/Kerbal, rockets will have to be planted onto the chunks of rock to change their trajectory. Like everything KSP, this can be used as a chance to gain more research data to make bigger and better things that violently explode.

More details, including an in-depth look at the more scientific side of things, will be announced at SXSW later this month. This doesn’t seem like the type of mission where building a big rocket, pointing it in the right direction and pressing go will suffice.

Kerbal Space Program is still in Early Access Alpha on Steam, but has been available since mid-2011. Given how much the developer Squad want to fit into the game, it may be a good long while before it reaches an official release for those who want to wait.