ESA’s Hera mission lifted off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on 7 Oct. 7, 2024.
Hera is ESA’s first planetary defence mission. It will fly to a unique target among the 1.3 million asteroids in our Solar System–the only body to have had its orbit shifted by human action–to solve lingering unknowns associated with its deflection.
Hera will carry out the first detailed survey of a ‘binary’ – or double-body – asteroid, 65803 Didymos, which is orbited by a smaller body, Dimorphos. Hera’s main focus will be Dimorphos, whose orbit around the main body was previously altered by NASA’s kinetic-impacting DART spacecraft.
By sharpening scientific understanding of this ‘kinetic impact’ technique of asteroid deflection, Hera should turn the experiment into a well-understood and repeatable technique for protecting Earth from an asteroid on a collision course.
📸 ESA – S. Corvaja
Copyright: ESA/SpaceX
