Hera launch from Space X’s rocket liftoff: Live updates
Watch the launch live
Other aspects of the Hera launch
Hera will also deploy two additional satellites (Milani and Juventas). The former is a rock decoder while Juventas is a radar visionary.
On September 26 2022, a spacecraft weighing 570kg was fired into the asteroid moon Dimorphos. The aim was to shift the orbit of the moon to prove it would be possible to alter the direction of space debris that could threaten Earth in future.
It succeeded in this aim by knocking the asteroid off course by 32 minutes. Both the impact of the spacecraft and the aftermath was caught on camera by NASA’s two sapce telescopes, Hubble and James Webb.
Lori Glaze, director of Nasa’s planetary division, said at the press conference, “Let’s all just take a moment to soak this in. We’re all here this afternoon because for the first time ever, humanity has changed the orbit of a planetary body.”
A pioneering mission
This launch is a milestone in planetary defense as it is ESA's first mission to an asterioid. It will retrieve data that will complement those obtained by Nasa's DART mission, which in 2022 impacted Dimorphos, altering its orbit.
If all goes according to plan, the Hera probe will reach Dimorphos by the end of 2026. Its objective will be to evaluate the impact caused by DART as well as the effectiveness of the collision.
Welcome to a new space launch!
This time it is the turn of the European probe Hera, which will be launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida this morning.