ESA’s Hera targets early arrival at Didymos asteroids

Launched one year ago, on 7 October 2024, the European Space Agency’s Hera mission is roughly halfway to its destination – the Didymos binary asteroid system.At Didymos, Hera will study the aftermath of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, which struck the asteroid’s small moon Dimorphos in 2022, and help humankind learn how to reliably change the trajectory of an asteroid.Thanks to the spacecraft’s good performance, and some clever planning by teams on Earth, Hera is on track to arrive at Didymos in November 2026 – a month earlier than originally planned.