04/10/2024
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ESA’s Hera asteroid mission will lift-off quickly! Hera will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral House Power Station in Florida, USA. The launch window opens on 7 October and groups on either side of the Atlantic are at present 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 present know of more than 35 000 asteroids whose orbits carry them shut sufficient to Earth that we hold a detailed eye on them. ESA’s Hera mission is a part of the worldwide effort to reply the query: may 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 take a look at 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 principle 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 approach.
Hera would be the first spacecraft to rendezvous with a binary asteroid system and its scientific survey of the goal asteroids will drastically enhance our understanding of how binary techniques kind and why they’re so frequent.
The spacecraft may also reveal 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 underneath ESA’s House Security programme. It options contributions from 18 European ESA Member States and the Japanese house company JAXA has supplied one of many spacecraft’s scientific devices. The worldwide Hera science community 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 house manoeuvre in November 2024 can be adopted by a Mars flyby that provides a uncommon and thrilling view of Mars’s moon Deimos in March 2025. A second deep house manoeuvre in February 2026 will line Hera up for arrival on the Didymos binary asteroid system. An ‘impulsive rendezvous’ in October 2026 will carry Hera into the neighborhood of the asteroid system for orbit insertion.
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