On 26 September 2022, NASA’s DART spacecraft slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos, shifting its trajectory round its father or mother asteroid, Didymos. The mission was the primary of a duo of craft set to go to the binary asteroid system in an try and study extra about how we would defend our planet from asteroids, ought to one be on a collision course.

The follow-up mission, involving a spacecraft known as Hera constructed by the European House Company (ESA), is because of launch in October. It should examine the collision’s aftermath utilizing a collection of detectors and can carry two CubeSats known as Juventus and Milani. However earlier than it might go away Earth, Hera should bear a barrage of checks at ESA’s European House Analysis and Know-how Centre within the Netherlands to make sure it might cope with the rigours of launch and area.

Heli Greus, the mission’s product assurance and security supervisor, is overseeing checks that embrace excessive noise and vibrations to simulate launch circumstances, and a thermal vacuum take a look at, during which Hera will face the acute temperature and different fluctuations that it’s going to expertise in area. If it passes, Greus would be the final particular person to signal the probe off for launch. However, she says, in each launch marketing campaign, there are at all times surprises.