European Space Agency awards Hera asteroid mission to German firm

Deal worth 118m covers design, manufacturing and testing of ESA's first planetary defence mission

The European Space Agency has awarded a 129m (118m) contract to the German space company OHB. The deal covers the design, manufacturing and testing of Hera, the ESA's first planetary defence mission.

Hera is the European contribution to an experiment called the asteroid impact and deflection assessment. The other component is Nasa's double asteroid redirection test (Dart). Both spacecraft are designed to visit the double asteroid Didymos.