THe was awarded a স্প 129 million (8 118 million) contract by the European Space Agency’s German space agency OHB. The agreement includes ESA’s first planetary defense mission to design, manufacture and test Herrera.

Hera’s European contribution to an experiment known as asteroid impact and parasitic assessment. Another component is NASA’s dual asteroid redirection test (DART). Both spacecraft are designed to see the double asteroid Didimos.

The original asteroid is 8060 meters in diameter and orbits a small moon, Dimorphos, across 160 meters or about the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The Dart will arrive in September 2022. Traveling at high speeds, it will move towards Dimorphos to slightly change the orbit of the moon.

The diamond will be launched in 2024 and will arrive in 2026 to observe at least six more months to better understand Didimos and Dimorphos and how they affected the moon.

Hera will operate an automated guiding, navigation and control system developed by ESA, which makes the spacecraft the equivalent of a driverless vehicle. It will also deploy two other small satellites built by Juventus and Asteroid Process Explorer to assist in the investigation.