European Space Agency Launches Their Hera Spacecraft To Investigate The Wreckage Of An Intentional NASA Asteroid Crash

The ESA’s Hera mission takes flight toward the asteroid deflected by NASA’s DART probe two years ago

The European Space Agency’s Hera mission set off from Cape Canaveral on 7 October on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. It will travel several hundred million kilometres to reach the double asteroid Didymos in autumn 2026.

European Space Agency Launches Their Hera Spacecraft To Investigate The Wreckage Of An Intentional NASA Asteroid Crash

Investigating a crash scene is a major undertaking. Trying to figure out exactly what happened at the moment of impact, and how the impact affected the surrounding area is very important. Investigating a crash scene that occurred thousands of miles away from Earth, however, is even harder. In 2022, NASA intentionally crashed into an asteroid as a test of their Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART). They monitored the event and were very happy …