Europe's highly anticipated Hera mission to catalog the wreckage of the asteroid Dimorphos has arrived at its Florida launch site for final checks ahead of its planned liftoff early next month.
The main Hera spacecraft and its two partner cubesats, named Milani and Juventas, are set to launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Oct. 7 at 10:52 a.m. EDT (1452 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. They'll arrive at Dimorphos in late 2026, on a mission to study the aftermath of NASA's planetary defense test, which intentionally smashed a spacecraft into the asteroid in September 2022, shortening its orbit by 33 minutes and permanently altering its shape.
