The moment ESA’s Hera asteroid mission for planetary defence arrived at the largest satellite test site in Europe – the ESTEC Test Centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.

The van-sized spacecraft was driven overnight from its ‘birthplace’ at OHB in Bremen, Germany cocooned inside this environmentally controlled container.

The container was lifted from its transport lorry then left in the airlock of the Test Centre overnight to allow dust to settle and internal and external humidity to equalise before it could be taken into the cleanroom area and taken out safely.

“This is an emotional moment for our team, because it has taken three years of hard work to reach this point,” explains Hera lead system engineer Paolo Martino.

“This is an extremely short timespan to have a complete deep space mission ready for testing, but we did it – now the next step is to fully check its fitness for spaceflight for its launch in October 2024.”

Hera is Europe’s contribution to an international planetary defence experiment. Last year the NASA DART mission impacted with the Dimorphos asteroid in deep space – modifying its orbit and sending a plume of debris thousands of kilometres out into space.

Next Hera will return to Dimorphos to perform a close-up survey of the crater left by DART. The mission will also measure Dimorphos’ mass and make-up, along with that of the larger Didymos asteroid that Dimorphos orbits around. This extra data will help turn this grand-scale impact experiment into a well-understood technique that could be repeated if ever needed to safeguard Earth.

Operated for ESA by European Test Services, the ESTEC Test Centre is the largest facility of its kind in Europe, providing a complete suite of equipment for all aspects of satellite testing under a single roof. You can visit ESTEC during this year’s ESA Open Day in the Netherlands, taking place on the first weekend of October.