Planetary defense mission launched with Swiss participation
Published: Monday, Oct 7th 2024, 17:10
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The planetary defense mission "Hera" has been launched. At 16:52 Swiss time, the probe lifted off on board a Falcon 9 rocket from the private space company SpaceX, as a live broadcast of the launch showed. Swiss researchers are also involved.
The European Space Agency ESA has thus launched what it claims to be its first planetary defense mission.
"The mission is helping to understand how an asteroid on a collision course with Earth can be deflected," Martin Jutzi from the University of Bern, who is involved in the mission, told the Keystone-SDA news agency ahead of the launch.
The target is the asteroid Dimorphos, which the US space agency NASA crashed a probe into two years ago as part of the Dart mission (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) in order to divert it from its course.
"Hera" will now investigate what exactly the impact with the asteroid did. The space probe is due to begin its scientific investigation in 26 months.
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