Europe's Hera Planetary Defense Asteroid Mission: Preparing for Launch

Europe's Hera Planetary Defense Asteroid Mission: Preparing for Launch

The European Space Agency's Hera asteroid mission encapsulated within its SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket fairing in preparation for it to be attached. The fairing features the patches of Hera and its CubeSats Milani and Juventas, plus the European Space Agency (ESA) logo.

Hera spacecraft being enclosed within the two halves of its 13-m-high launcher fairing that will safeguard the spacecraft during its initial ascent through the atmosphere aboard its Falcon 9 rocket.

The team from OHB and ESA preparing the Hera asteroid mission for launch pose in front of the spacecraft in launch configuration—note the lack of 'red tag' items on its surface. OHB System AG, a subsidiary of the space and technology group OHB SE, developed, built, and tested the asteroid probe on behalf of the European Space Agency (ESA).

ESA’s Hera asteroid mission for planetary defense seen with one of its two solar wings added, during its continuing test campaign at the ESTEC Test Center in the Netherlands.

The Hera spacecraft inside the Maxwell chamber for electromagnetic compatibility testing, checking its systems can operate without harmful interference. Note its 1.13-m diameter High Gain Antenna, its primary means of communicating with Earth, and its red-tagged Reaction Control Thrusters on each corner of the spacecraft. On the left side of the spacecraft is its ‘Asteroid Deck’, where Hera’s instruments are hosted. 

Hera systems engineer Pedro Escorial prepares the Juventas CubeSat for electromagnetic compatibility testing alongside its Hera mothership in ESA’s Maxwell chamber, part of Hera’s pre-flight test campaign at ESA’s Test Centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.

Members of Hera’s testing team prepare for electromagnetic compatibility testing during the mission’s pre-flight test campaign at ESA’s Test Center in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.

Hera Mission patch

The European Space Agency (ESA) Hera Mission will soon be launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The launch window opens on October 7, 2024. There is a mystery out there in deep space—and solving it will make Earth safer. This is why ESA’s Hera Mission is taking shape—to go where one particular spacecraft has gone before.

On September 26, 2022, moving at 6.1 km/s, NASA’s DART spacecraft crashed into the Dimorphos asteroid. Part of our Solar System changed. The impact shrunk the orbit of the Great Pyramid-sized Dimorphos around its parent asteroid, the mountain-sized Didymos.

This grand experiment was performed to prove we could defend Earth against an incoming asteroid, by striking it with a spacecraft to deflect it. DART succeeded. However, it still leaves many things scientists do not know: What is the precise mass and makeup of Dimorphos? What did the impact do to the asteroid? How large is the crater left by DART’s collision? Or has Dimorphos completely cracked apart, to be held together only by its own weak gravity?

This is why we are going back with the European Space Agency’s Hera Mission. The spacecraft will revisit Dimorphos to gather vital close-up data about the deflected body, to turn DART’s grand-scale experiment into a well-understood and potentially repeatable planetary defence technique.

The mission will also perform the most detailed exploration yet of a binary asteroid system—although binaries make up 15% of all known asteroids, one has never been surveyed in detail.

Hera will also perform technology demonstration experiments, including the deployment of the European Space Agency’s first deep space ‘CubeSats’—shoebox-sized spacecraft to venture closer than the main mission then eventually land—and an ambitious test of 'self-driving' for the main spacecraft, based on vision-based navigation.

By the end of Hera’s observations, Dimorphos will become the best studied asteroid in history. This is vital, because if a body of this size ever struck Earth it could destroy an entire city. The dinosaurs had no defense against asteroids, because they "never had a space agency." However, through Hera, we are teaching ourselves what we can do to reduce this hazard and make our space environment safer.

The Hera mission has 18 participating ESA Member States plus Japan (supplying the TIRI instrument). Notably German industry is leading the mission while Italy is providing the propulsion and Spain and Romania developed Hera’s innovative guidance, navigation and control system. The Hera Science Team involves scientists from all ESA Member States, Japan, the US and other non-European countries.

OHB System AG, a subsidiary of the space and technology group OHB SE, developed, built, and tested the asteroid probe on behalf of the European Space Agency (ESA).

Learn more about the Hera Mission:

https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera

Image Credits: European Space Agency (ESA)/SpaceX

Release Dates: Nov. 30, 2023-Oct. 4, 2024

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