Hera mission, which is traveling to asteroid Didymos and its moon Dimorphos as a follow-up to NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, beat weather odds and successfully launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The ESA spacecraft embarked on a two-year journey to the asteroid Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos on Monday.

The European Space Agency’s Hera mission will investigate an asteroid that NASA deliberately struck with another spacecraft in a previous test of humanity’s planetary defense readiness.

Europe’s first planetary defense mission — a follow-up to NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test — will launch as early as next week.

ESA's Hera spacecraft designed to assess NASA's experiment to deflect an asteroid has launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. At 14:52 GMT, the robotic probe lifted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket to begin its three-year mission.

Hera, the Europe's ESA space mission to study a rogue asteroid that was deflected by NASA, kicks off in early October 2024.

SpaceX launched the European Space Agency's Hera spacecraft on Monday to see a test NASA performed in 2022 to knock the moonlet off its orbit from an asteroid actually worked.

In humanity’s latest bid to avoid going the way of the dinosaurs, a European spacecraft soared away from the coast of Florida on Monday. The mission, Hera, will visit an asteroid that NASA deliberately struck with another spacecraft two years ago.