At ESA’s ESOC mission control centre, in Darmstadt, Germany, every launch is preceded by the pre-launch briefing – and the all-important team photos.

The next spacecraft to be flown from ESOC, Hera, is scheduled for launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket this month.

Hera is Europe’s first asteroid mission and will be the first spacecraft to rendezvous with and explore a binary asteroid system. The Didymos system is special one: it is home to humankind’s first attempt at a technique that may one day be used to protect Earth from an asteroid on a collision course – asteroid deflection.

Two years ago, on 26 September 2022, NASA’s 580-kilogram DART spacecraft slammed into the 151-metre Dimorphos asteroid, changing its orbit around the larger, 780-metre Didymos asteroid. Now, Hera is launching on a mission to perform a detailed post-impact survey of Dimorphos. Using a suite of scientific instruments on the main spacecraft and its two CubeSat passengers, Hera will assess the effectiveness of asteroid deflection and help turn this experiment into a well-understood and repeatable technique for planetary defence.

Gathered inside the Press Centre at ESOC, this is the team that will take Hera to Didymos. They will oversee the mission from its crucial first hours in space, through its two-year journey to Didymos, via Mars, and during its exploration of the two target asteroids.

Months of preparations and simulations at mission control culminated in Saturday’s launch dress rehearsal and team photos. This final rehearsal brought together the ESA teams and the mission’s partners to test communication links between ESOC, ground stations and the spacecraft, and complete a final, meticulous run through of the sequence of events that will take place on launch day.

Preparations, rehearsals, briefings and team photos complete, mission control is GO for launch!

Follow @esa, @ESA_Hera and @esaoperations on X for live updates on launch day.

Click here for the latest details on how and when to watch the launch live.