ESA prepares to launch Hera mission to Didymos asteroid

The European Space Agency plans to launch the Hera mission to the binary asteroid Didymos this Monday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral space station in Florida.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which suspended launches of the Falcon 9 rocket because a problem arose after the Crew-9 mission was sent to the International Space Station with two astronauts on board, indicated that “He The return to flight of the Falcon 9 is only possible for the Hera mission on October 7. The investigation into the incident remains open. The reason is that there is no second reentry stage planned for this mission.”

In September 2022 NASA’s DART space probe collides with asteroid Dimorphos in the first test of deflecting an asteroid, changing its orbit around the largest asteroid Didymos. Now ESA’s Hera spacecraft is heading out on a mission to study Dimorphos in detail after the impact.

Using the complex of scientific instruments of the main spacecraft and its two CubeSat passenger satellites, Hera will evaluate the effectiveness of asteroid deflection and will help turn this grand experiment into a well-understood and replicable technique for planetary defense. Hera will be the first spacecraft to encounter a binary asteroid system, and scientific study of the target asteroids will greatly improve our understanding of how binary systems form and why they are so common.

The spacecraft will also demonstrate new technologies for autonomous space navigation. and for close-range operations in low gravity environments.

Hera is an ESA mission. the first spacecraft developed under ESA’s space security programme. It included 18 European ESA member states, and the Japanese space agency JAXA provided one of the spacecraft’s scientific instruments. Hera’s global science community overlaps in many ways with that of NASA’s DART mission.

Once launched, Hera will begin a two-year cruise phase. The first deep space maneuver will be followed by a flyby of Mars in November 2024, which will provide a unique and spectacular view of the Martian moon Deimos in March 2025. A second deep space maneuver in February 2026 will coincide with Hera’s arrival at the binary Didymos asteroid system. . An “impulse rendezvous” in October 2026 will bring Hera to the vicinity of an asteroid system for insertion into orbit.