DARMSTADT, Germany, Oct. 10, 2026 - The ESA Hera mission will perform a braking manoeuvre early Thursday morning to prepare for its rendezvous with the asteroid system Didymos and its moon Dimorphos.^[1] The manoeuvre, scheduled for 15 October, is designed to reduce Hera's velocity relative to the asteroids by a few hundred metres per second.^[2] Hera launched on 7 October 2024. The spacecraft is travelling to Dimorphos, where NASA's DART spacecraft deliberately impacted the asteroid moon in 2022 to shift its orbit around Didymos. Hera will investigate the results of that impact.^[3] Once it arrives at the system, Hera will release two cubesats, Milani and Juventas. The cubesats will conduct spectral surface observations and radar soundings of the asteroid.^[4] Impact Insight. A spacecraft arriving at a small asteroid has to brake gently, because the asteroid's gravity is far too weak to capture it the way a planet would. This is planetary defense directly: Hera will measure what NASA's DART impact did to Dimorphos, turning the first deflection test into a method that could be used against a real threat.