Hera mission: Keeping Earth safe from an asteroid collision

By Spacephototshirts


The European Space Agency is proceeding with plans to launch its Hera mission on October 7, 2024 (although the Falcon 9 rocket is still grounded as of this writing). Hera will travel to the asteroid moon Dimorphos to investigate the aftermath of humanity’s first planetary defense test in 2022. It was the first true test of our ability to crash a spacecraft into an asteroid, attempting to deflect it from its path. EarthSky’s Deborah Byrd spoke live on October 3 with Hera project scientist Michael Küppers. Get the latest here about keeping Earth safe from asteroids.

Hera is ready to launch!

The long-awaited Hera mission, which will follow the wildly successful DART mission that struck and moved an asteroid in 2022, is scheduled to launch on October 7, 2024. The current date and time of launch, according to NASA, is at 14:52 UTC (10:52 a.m. EDT) on October 7, 2024, from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Will Hera launch? No one knows yet. The Federal Aviation Administration has grounded the Falcon 9 rocket (again). Will the FAA lift the grounding in time for the Hera launch? As of this writing (early in the day on October 4), ESA is proceeding toward the October 7 launch as if it will happen.

The launch window is open until October 25.

Now let’s go back to 2022. When DART hit Didymos’s little moon Dimorphos, it presumably made a big splash. We know for sure it pushed the asteroid slightly out of its previous orbit. And the debris kicked up in the collision might even have created a new meteor shower for Earth! Hera is going to learn more about just what happened when DART struck the little asteroid, creating a crater on its surface and moving it slightly in orbit. It’s going to learn more about Dimorphos itself, to help refine our knowledge of what DART did … to keep us safe from future asteroid collisions.

Following a successful launch, Hera will first sweep past the planet Mars. It’ll enter Mars’ gravitational field and get a boost in speed, and a slight change in direction, from Mars. After this gravity assist from Mars, Hera should arrive at the asteroid Didymos and its smaller moon Dimorphos in about two years. According to ESA – the mission planner – Hera will conduct a “crime scene investigation” at the little asteroid moon.

In this artist’s concept, the Hera mission scans the impact crater that DART left behind. Image via ESA.

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Here are 3 mysteries that Hera will help solve

Meet the Hera mission

The original plan was for DART and Hera to work as a double spacecraft, but over the years of planning, they became separate missions. Ian Carnelli of ESA’s Hera mission said:

The pair are designed to function separately … their overall science return will be boosted greatly by being able to combine their results.

While scientists closely monitored the 2022 DART impact from Earth, the earthly observations didn’t tell scientists many things about Dimorphos that Hera can learn from close range. So, Hera will inspect the asteroid moonlet to determine its precise mass, what it’s made up of, whether it’s solid or a loose pile of rubble, and what exactly the DART impact crater looks like.

Hera’s contributions

Besides the main spacecraft, Hera will deploy two shoebox-sized satellites. Milani is in charge of spectral surface observations (splitting bounced light from the surface into a rainbow array of colors, then analyzing that light), and Juventas will take the first radar soundings in the heart of an asteroid.

Graphic showing stages of DART and Hera missions, with text explanations.
View larger. | DART made its mark on Dimorphos, and Hera is coming along behind it to measure the impact. Image via ESA.

Huge, irregular rock hovering over Roman Colosseum, a large, ruined stone stadium.
This graphic compares the size of the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos to the Colosseum in Rome, Italy. Image via ESA.

Bottom line: The Hera mission is scheduled to launch from Kennedy Space Center on October 7, 2024. Hera will explore the asteroid Dimorphos, which the DART mission hit as a test of planetary defense in 2022.

Via ESA

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