Milani CubeSat deployed from Hera asteroid mission

The shoebox-sized Milani CubeSat will perform close-up mineral prospecting of the Dimorphos asteroid, one of two miniature CubeSats being carried aboard ESA's Hera mission for planetary defence. Mliani and the Juventas radar-carrying CubeSat will spend Hera’s two-year cruise phase to Didymos inside a pair of ‘Deep Space Deployers’ which will keep them alive and healthy. The pair will be deployed one at a time, starting with a partial deployment to check each CubeSat’s functionality. Finally, they will be deployed at just a few centimetres per second – any faster and they would risk being lost in space within the prevailing low gravity.