On October 7, the launch of the Falcon 9 rocket should take place from the spaceport at Cape Canaveral. On its board is the Hera spacecraft, the target of which will be a binary asteroid.
Mission to binary asteroid
Earlier we have already told in detail about the Hera mission. Its target is the binary asteroid Didymos. In 2022, its moon Dimorphos underwent a man-made bombardment by the NASA-built DART spacecraft. The purpose of the experiment was to study the possibility of changing the orbit of a celestial body threatening the Earth by kinetic impact.
The consequences of the impact far exceeded the expectations of specialists. According to the most conservative estimates, the collision with DART knocked out at least a thousand tons of matter from the surface of Dimorphos. It also had a long dust tail (which later bifurcated) with a length of 10,000 km.
However, although ground-based observatories have collected a lot of data, astronomers still have a number of questions. Hera will have to find answers to them. The mission plan involves the spacecraft reaching Didymos in 2026, after which it will scrutinize the small body and its companion. Hera will also release a pair of cubesat satellites. At the end of their mission, they will attempt a landing on the surface of Dimorphos.
Live broadcast of the Hera launch
A Falcon 9 rocket will be used to send Hera into space. As of now, the launch of the mission is scheduled at 16:52 CEST / 15:52 BST. The live broadcast will begin at 16:15 CEST / 15:15 BST.
Because the rocket’s second stage will be used in a single-use mission during the upcoming mission, the FAA granted SpaceX permission to launch. The weather may pose a problem. According to forecasters, the probability of favorable conditions at the time of launch is only 15%.
Hurricane Milton poses additional difficulties. It is expected to reach Florida on October 9. Because of it, NASA has already postponed the return to Earth of the Crew-9 mission. The hurricane will also almost certainly cause the launch of the Europa Clipper mission, which has been scheduled for October 10 so far, to be postponed. If Hera fails to launch today, the European spacecraft will also have to be delayed on Earth waiting for more favorable weather conditions.
