NASA deflected the asteroid, crashing the spacecraft. Now ESA has sent Hera to find out what really happened.
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera mission is already on its way to Dimorphos, the first asteroid deflected by humans as part of a mission to protect the planet. To launch it, SpaceX had to fly faster than ever.
ESA’s Hera mission begins. Hera lifted off Tuesday at 14:52 UTC from the Space Force’s SLC-40 platform at Cape Canaveral. An hour later, he successfully deployed his solar panels and left Earth.
The launch was not hampered by either the weather (the forecast the day before was 15% favorable) or the suspension of SpaceX flights due to the recent failure of the second stage. The Falcon 9 rocket had to use all available fuel and was not scheduled to launch from orbit, so the FAA authorized the liftoff as an exception to SpaceX’s flight suspension.
Speed record. The second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket flew at 43,040 kilometers per hour to put Hera on a direct exit path from Earth, heading towards the asteroid Didymos and its moon Dimorphos.
This is a new speed record for SpaceX. The company will have to achieve even greater speeds to launch NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft to Jupiter in a few days, but this second launch is planned on the Falcon Heavy, a rocket three times more powerful.
Farewell, veteran rocket. As for the Falcon 9 first stage, it was the historic B1061 launch vehicle that launched the Crew-1 and Crew-2 crewed missions among more than a hundred satellites.
Hera marked her twenty-third and final throw. The rocket was decommissioned having used up every last drop of fuel and was therefore unable to land again. This isn’t the first time SpaceX has launched its reusable rockets in this manner, retiring them from highly energetic missions.
What is Hera’s mission? NASA and ESA are collaborating on a dual planetary defense mission (AIDA) to deflect the asteroid. NASA did some dirty work with the DART probe, which collided with the asteroid Dimorphos on September 26, 2022, changing its orbit around a larger asteroid called Didymos.
ESA’s Hera mission is now heading to a pair of asteroids (Dimorphos is a moon of Didymos) to collect data on Dimorphos and analyze the results of DART, a maneuver we may need in the future to deflect an asteroid heading towards Earth. That’s why China announced its own mission to deflect yet another asteroid, 219 VL5.
Why didn’t they fly at the same time? It would be ideal to study the impact of DART at the time it occurred. And this was originally planned in the European AIM mission, but AIM was canceled by ESA due to its high cost, as happened with the previous Don Quixote mission.
Hera went from contract signing to launch in just four years, which is unusual for deep space missions. With a budget of 6 billion euros, Didymos and Dimorphos are planned to be achieved in two years.
Spanish participation. Gera has an important Spanish involvement. GMV followed the launch from Tres Cantos by providing the Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) system, as well as software and support for ESA operations and flight dynamics control.
Approach to Mars’ moon Deimos. Hera will perform a gravity assist maneuver around Mars in March 2025, giving the spacecraft extra speed to rendezvous with Didymos.
During the gravity assist, Hera surveys the Martian moon Deimos, putting its instruments to scientific use for the first time.
What’s on board. Hera is a probe the size of a car. The ship carries two miniature CubeSats. They have a total of 12 instruments, including a pair of cameras and an infrared thermal sensor.
The shoebox-sized mini-satellites will land on the asteroid, maneuvering in ultra-low gravity to collect scientific data before landing. The main ship will autonomously navigate around asteroids, visually tracking them.
The reason was the first meteor shower. The impact of DART deserves further study. According to observations from Earth, the NASA spacecraft managed to reduce the orbital period of Dimorphos around Didymos by 33 minutes, almost 5% of the original value.
The impact threw a cloud of debris thousands of kilometers into space. In the coming decades, we will know whether fragments of Dimorphos formed as a result of the DART impact will reach our planet. This will be the first meteor shower caused by humans.
Image | ESA, SpaceX
In Hatak | We knew the DART mission had changed Dimorphos’ trajectory. What we didn’t know was that it had also changed its shape.