ESA's Hera mission is set to analyze the asteroid that NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) collided with in September 2022.https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2023/06/grass-update/NSF's Bella Richards (@bellaa_richards) with the latest on the gravimeter for small solar system objects (GRASS), a small device that will be carried by Hera to measure the minuscule gravity levels of Dimorphos, the orbiting moonlet of the 65803 Didymos binary system.GRASS, one of the core parts of Hera that will work with the other instruments to provide a clearer picture of the impact made by DART, and is scheduled to launch in October 2024, for a December 2026 rendezvous with Dimorphos.
We delivered the central tube (marked “blue”) for the @esa asteroid mission Hera for planetary defense. Our central tube is made of carbon fibre reinforced polymer. It is the central core on which all other components are “hung up” and serves as a backbone to Hera 🛰️ (c) @OHB_SE
BREAKING NEWS: the two #HeraMission modules have been successfully mated this morning 🚀 the spacecraft was designed and built as a Core Module and Propulsion Module. Now “there shall be only one”, the Hera spacecraft! One step closer to Didymos
Next Milestone is mid August with the integration of the instruments on the asteroid deck. Keep following the #HeraMission adventures
First images from the #HeraMission mating. Standing ovation to the AIT teams 🚀 Hera is a beauty
The emotional moment @ESA's #HeraMission for #asteroid #PlanetaryDefence departs its 'birthplace' at @OHB_SE Bremen 🇩🇪, headed for a full-scale test campaign at #ESTEC in Noordwijk 🇳🇱 https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera
Our most precious cargo about to arrive @esa #ESTEC so many emotions after so many battles, dedication and passionate work. I can’t wait to see #HeraMission in its new home ❤️
Today @JAXA_en delivered the Thermal ImageR Instrument proto-flight model to the #HeraMission. Looking very much forward to replacing the EQM with the final unit.
Feb 19, 2024On 26 September 2022, NASA’s DART spacecraft slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos, shifting its trajectory around its parent asteroid, Didymos. The mission was the first of a duo of craft set to visit the binary asteroid system in an attempt to learn more about how we might protect our planet from asteroids, should one be on a collision course.The follow-up mission, involving a spacecraft called Hera built by the European Space Agency (ESA), is due to launch in October. It will investigate the collision’s aftermath using a suite of detectors and will carry two CubeSats called Juventus and Milani. But before it can leave Earth, Hera must undergo a barrage of tests at ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre in the Netherlands to ensure it can deal with the rigours of launch and space.Heli Greus, the mission's product assurance and safety manager, is overseeing checks that include extreme noise and vibrations to simulate launch conditions, and a thermal vacuum test, in which Hera will face the extreme temperature and other fluctuations that it will experience in space. If it passes, Greus will be the last person to sign the probe off for launch. But, she says, in every launch campaign, there are always surprises.
The shoebox-sized Milani CubeSat, which will perform close-up mineral prospecting of the Dimorphos asteroid, is ready for delivery to ESA’s Hera asteroid mission for planetary defence. The spacecraft will carry Milani and a second CubeSat, the Juventas radar imaging spacecraft for probing into the target asteroid, which together will be ESA’s first CubeSats to operate in deep space.Funded through the Italian Space Agency, ASI, the Milani CubeSat was shown to the press at the premises of its prime contractor Tyvak International in Turin. It will now be flown to ESA’s ESTEC Test Centre in the Netherlands, where Hera is currently undergoing pre-flight testing, for integration with its mothership and subsequent validation of the inter-satellite link system that will connect Hera, Milani and Juventas as they fly around the Didymos system.
In the process the spacecraft will venture as near as 6 000 km from the surface of the Red Planet, closer than the orbits of the two martian moons. Its trajectory will be tweaked so that it can train its science instruments onto Mars’s smaller moon Deimos from within 1 000 km away, while also observing Mars itself.Details of the swingby are being presented at this week’s Hera Science Community Workshop at ESA’s ESTEC technical centre in the Netherlands.
Hera will be humankind's first probe to closely investigate a binary asteroid system. It will find out more about this type of asteroid and explore asteroid deflection. This infographic describes the Hera mission from its lift off from Earth to Hera's final landing on asteroid Didymos.Along the way, Hera will carry out lots of science, including measuring the properties of the asteroid and investigating the crater left by DART crashing into the asteroid’s surface. It will also demonstrate some impressive new technologies.
