ESA’s Hera asteroid mission will lift-off quickly! Hera will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Area Pressure Station in Florida, USA. The launch window opens on 7 October and groups on each side of the Atlantic are at the moment arduous at work finishing up launch preparations.

ESA will livestream the launch on ESA WebTV, ESA YouTube and on ESA’s X, and LinkedIn accounts. Extra particulars will observe as we obtain affirmation of the launch date and time from the launch service supplier. Keep tuned.

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About Hera – ESA’s first asteroid mission

Our planet lives in a busy cosmic neighbourhood. We at the moment know of greater than 35 000 asteroids whose orbits deliver them shut sufficient to Earth that we preserve an in depth eye on them. ESA’s Hera mission is a part of the worldwide effort to reply the query: might we do something if we found one on a collision course?

In September 2022, NASA’s DART spacecraft impacted the asteroid Dimorphos within the first check of asteroid deflection, shifting its orbit across the bigger asteroid Didymos. Now, ESA’s Hera spacecraft is launching on a mission to carry out an in depth post-impact survey of Dimorphos.

Utilizing the suite of scientific devices on the primary spacecraft and its two CubeSat passengers, Hera will assess the effectiveness of asteroid deflection and assist flip this grand experiment right into a well-understood and repeatable planetary defence method.

Hera would be the first spacecraft to rendezvous with a binary asteroid system and its scientific survey of the goal asteroids will significantly enhance our understanding of how binary methods type and why they’re so widespread.

The spacecraft can even exhibit new applied sciences for autonomous spacecraft navigation and for shut proximity operations in low-gravity environments.

Hera is an ESA mission, and the primary spacecraft developed below ESA’s Area Security programme. It options contributions from 18 European ESA Member States and the Japanese area company JAXA has supplied one of many spacecraft’s scientific devices. The worldwide Hera science group overlaps considerably with that of NASA’s DART mission.

Past launch day

As soon as launched, Hera will start a two-year cruise part. An preliminary deep area manoeuvre in November 2024 shall be adopted by a Mars flyby that provides a uncommon and thrilling view of Mars’s moon Deimos in March 2025. A second deep area manoeuvre in February 2026 will line Hera up for arrival on the Didymos binary asteroid system. An ‘impulsive rendezvous’ in October 2026 will deliver Hera into the neighborhood of the asteroid system for orbit insertion.