Hera Mission
WEBHera is a planetary defence mission under development at the European Space Agency (ESA) - launching in October 2024. Its objectives are to investigate the Didymos binary asteroid, including the very first assessment of its internal properties, and to measure in great detail the outcome of NASA's DART mission kinetic impactor test.
Scenario - October 2024 - Spacecraft — Hera Mission
WEBHera – named after the Greek goddess of marriage – will be, along with NASA's DART spacecraft, humankind’s first probe to rendezvous with a binary asteroid system, a little understood class making up around 15% of all known asteroids.
Instruments - Hera Mission
WEBThe Hera radio science experiment (RSE) will contribute to the determination of the binary system’s mass, gravity field and rotational state and orbits, through processing of Doppler and ranging measurements, as well as optical images.
Team - Hera Mission
WEBThe Hera science team is based on working groups per mission topic, which is different from the model adopted for large ESA planetary missions, where the Project Scientist is supported by Science Working Teams consisting mostly of instrument Principal Investigators (PIs).
HeraMission Milani Cubesat — Hera Mission
WEBHeraMission Milani Cubesat — Hera Mission. , devoted to the visual inspection and dust detection of Didymos asteroid following DART impact. • Map the global composition of the Didymos asteroids. • Characterize the surface of the Didymos asteroids. • Evaluate DART impact effects on Didymos asteroids and support gravity field determination.
Planetary Defence - Hera Mission
WEBPlanetary Defence — Hera Mission. has been a pioneer in the study of space missions devoted to testing an asteroid deflection technique, starting with the study of the Don Quijotte kinetic impactor concept in the early 2000s recommended by the Near-Earth Object Mission Advisory Panel (NEOMAP).
Workshop 2024 — Hera Mission
WEBThe Hera Workshop 2024, open to the whole community, will again take place at European Space Agency’s ESTEC (Noordwijk, The Netherlands) on April 25th-26th, 2024. It will be the last one before our probe leaves to Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA for a take off at the JFK space center!
Hera Mission Juventas Cubesat — Hera Mission
WEBHera-Juventas ISL doppler enables to estimate the extended gravity field of both binary components. Accelerometers & Gyros Juventas will eventually land on Dimorphos and its accelerometers will allow the measurement of the bouncing properties at landing, which will give precious information on the surface mechanical response of the asteroid in ...
Hera Mision Science — Hera Mission
WEBWhile Hera is designed as a planetary defence mission, it will also contribute substantially to asteroid science. Beyond the headline results of measuring the effectiveness of kinetic impactor deflection technology, Hera will:
Hera in the Media — Hera Mission
WEBHera is a planetary defense mission under development in the Space Safety and Security Program of the European Space Agency for launch in 2024 October. It will rendezvous in late 2026 December with the binary asteroid (65803) Didymos and in particular its moon, Dimorphos, which will be impacted by NASA ’s DART spacecraft on 2022 September 26 ...