The European Space Agency's Hera spacecraft has completed a major deep-space maneuver, setting it on course to rendezvous late this year with the asteroid system targeted by NASA's DART mission back in 2022.
Hera launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in October 2024, beginning its voyage to the Didymos binary asteroid system. Hera is designed to make follow-up observations of Dimorphos, the smaller of the two asteroids, which NASA's DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft slammed into in September 2022.
