BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Brevard County on Monday morning.
The ESA Hera mission to interplanetary transfer orbit lifted off from from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 10:52 a.m.
SpaceX said that "due to the additional performance required to deliver the payload to an interplanetary transfer orbit, this mission marks the 23rd and final launch for this Falcon 9 first stage booster, which previously launched Crew-1, Crew-2, SXM-8, CRS-23, IXPE, Transporter-4, Transporter-5, Globalstar FM15, ISI EROS C-3, Korea 425, Maxar 1, ASBM, and 10 Starlink missions."
According to SpaceX, Hera is a planetary defense mission that will study the impact NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission spacecraft had on the Dimorphos asteroid, which Falcon 9 launched in November 2021.
Hera is set to provide valuable data for future asteroid deflection missions and science to help humanity's understanding of asteroid geophysics as well as solar system formation and evolutionary processes.
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