Posted: Sun, Sep 20, 2020, 9:53 AM ET (1353 GMT)
OHB will build a spacecraft for an ESA planetary defense mission. The German company signed a $153 million contract with ESA Tuesday to build the Hera spacecraft to launch in 2024. Hera will fly to the near Earth asteroid Didymos to study the asteroid and its moon, Dimorphos, which is the target of NASA's DART mission to test asteroid deflect technologies. DART, launching next year, will collide with Dimorphos in October 2022 to test how that impact can change the moon's orbit.

Related Links:

•  SpaceNews article
•  Reuters article
•  ESA press release