Tag Archives: Hera

Images of Mars and Deimos captured by Hera from a moon

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On March 12, 2025, Spatula – ESA’s first space safety mission – reached Deimos, coming within 5,000 km of the surface of Mars and 1,000 km from Deimos. During flybys, the spacecraft deployed scientific payloads for studying Earth and the Moon. Activating the instruments onboard Hera, scientists were able to visualize the surface of Mars and the features of Deimos.

Mars appears bright blue in this near-infrared image of the Hyperscout H Hyperspectral Imager, which was acquired on the Mission’s March 12th Gravity Assisted Flyby. The spacecraft was about 1,000 km from Deimos, 12.4 km in diameter when this image was acquired. In the background, you can observe various Mars features. At the top of the image is the bright Terra Sabaaa area near the equator of Mars, which is outlined in a dark area, with the huygen crater at a distance of 450 km to the left of the Terra Aaa at Sabaaa and the 460 km diameter Shea Parelli Crater. To the bottom right of the Mars disc is one of the largest known impact craters in the solar system, 2,300 km in diameter and over 7 km deep. Image credit: ESA.

Launched on October 7th, 2024, Hera is now en route to visit Dimorphos. Dimorphos was the first asteroid to have its orbit altered by human intervention.

By gathering detailed data on this asteroid, which was affected by NASA’s DART spacecraft in 2022, Hera aims to advance asteroid deflection into a well-understood and potentially replicable technology.

Hera’s Flyby of Mars was a crucial step in the journey through Deep Space, meticulously planned by ESA’s Flight Dynamics team.

Approaching within 5,000 km of Mars, the planet’s gravity assisted in adjusting the spacecraft’s path towards its target.

Traveling at 9 km/s relative to Mars, Hera was able to capture images of Deimos from 1,000 km away, exploring the far side of the tiny moon opposite to the red planet.

“The mission analysis and flight dynamics team at ESOC in Germany did an exceptional job in planning the gravity assist,” said Caglayan Guerbuez, ESA’s Hera Spacecraft Operations Manager.

“In particular, they had to fine-tune the operations to bring Hera closer to Deimos, which added quite a bit of extra work for them!”

Three instruments onboard HERA were utilized during the flyby.

– The asteroid framing camera of the Spara, used for navigation and scientific purposes, captured images in visible light.

– HERA’s Hyperscout H Hyperspectral Imager observed in multiple colors beyond human perception, aiding in characterizing mineral compositions with its 25 visible and near-infrared spectral bands.

– HERA’s thermal infrared imager, provided by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), revealed physical properties such as roughness, particle size distribution, and porosity, mapping surface temperatures in mid-red wavelengths.

“These instruments were previously tested before leaving Earth, but this is the first time they were utilized on a distant moon like Deimos where knowledge is limited,” said the Research Director of CNRS, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur.

“Upon reaching Deimos, one of the HERA instruments remained idle as the others were in use. This is due to the limitation of the Cubesats, which are only activated at slower speeds when at a considerable distance from the target,” added the Research Director.

Source: www.sci.news

Hera Asteroid Mission Captures Breathtaking Image of Deimos, Moon of Mars

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Mars appears bright blue in this near-infrared image taken by Hera's spacecraft. The month's deimos is a dark mark towards the center of the image

ESA

Space exploration mission to study asteroids that NASA deliberately crashed a spacecraft three years ago takes stunning bonus images of Mars and its moon Deimos is on the way to his final destination.

NASA's 2022 Double Planet Redirect Test (DART) was an attempt to show that bodies on a collision course with the planet could be deliberately redirected to avoid catastrophic effects. Observations from Earth showed that NASA successfully alters the orbit of the asteroid by crushing the 610-kilogram ship into distant asteroid shaped leaves at 6.6 km/sec. Dimorphos did not present any risk to the Earth, and simply acted as a subject.

Hera is a subsequent European Space Agency mission designed to explore the effects of crashes in detail. The craft is the size of a small car weighing 1081 kilograms when fully fueled. It was released on October 7, 2024 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket, and on March 12, 2025 I made a flyby to Mars on my way to the asteroid.

Deimos looks dark surrounded by Mars

ESA

Hera came close to 5,000 kilometers to the surface of Mars, received a gravity boost and cast it at Dimorphos. The operation reduced travel time by months and saved fuel.

It was very close to Mars, but I was able to turn on the trio of sensors to take detailed photos of some of the planets. Demos in the same frame. We captured images, infrared cameras and hyperspectral imagers that can sense different colors beyond the limits of the human eye using a 1020 x 1020 pixel resolution.

Hera moved at 9 km/sec compared to Mars, allowing him to image Deimos, a distance of just 1000 kilometers, ranging from 12.4 kilometers long. You can also photograph the side of the moon, which is attractively trapped from Mars, but that's not very common.

Deimos shines much brighter than Mars in this shot taken by Hera's thermal infrared imager

ESA/JAXA

The first concept behind the Hera mission was that it existed when Dart collided with Dimorphos, but delays in funding made it impossible. It will arrive a few years after the impact.

The mission also features two miniature satellites, called Juventus and Milani, or Cubesat. Rather than rotating the traits, these will fly before them and make a drastic pass at smaller, risky distances to collect data. Both are expected to look better if they eventually land on an asteroid and do everything they can in the distance.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

New Hera probe sent to study asteroid target of NASA’s previous experiment

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On Monday, a spacecraft was launched to investigate. Space collision site.

The European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft was rocket-launched on a two-year journey to the small, harmless asteroid it crashed into. Two years ago, NASA During that day’s dress rehearsal, a killer space stone threatens Earth. The experiment, launched by SpaceX from Cape Canaveral, is the second in a series of planetary defense tests that could one day save the planet.

Crash in 2022 NASA dart spacecraft This shortens Dimorphos’ orbit around its larger brethren, indicating that if a dangerous rock is headed in our direction, it can be thrown off course with sufficient advance notice. I did.

Scientists want to study the impact’s aftermath up close to learn exactly how effective Dart was and what changes are needed to protect the planet in the future.

“The more details we can gather, the more details we can gather because it could be important in planning future deflection missions if they are needed,” University of Maryland astronomer Derek Richardson said before the launch. It’s good enough.”

Researchers want to know whether Dart (short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test) left behind a crater or changed the shape of the 500-foot (150-meter) asteroid more dramatically. Richardson, who participates in the dart mission and supports Hera, said that before the dart was shot, it looked like a flying saucer, but now it may resemble a kidney bean.

ESA’s Hera mission lifted off at 10:52 a.m. Monday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
S. Korbach / ESA

The flurry of darts sent debris and even rocks flying from Dimorphos, further increasing the force of the impact. The debris trail stretched thousands of miles (more than 10,000 kilometers) into space over several months.

Flight director Ignacio Tanco said rocks and other debris may still be floating around the asteroid, posing a potential threat to Hera.

“We don’t really know what kind of environment we’re going to operate in,” Tanko says. “But the whole point of this mission is to go out there and find out.”

European officials described the $400 million (363 million euro) mission as an “investigation of the accident scene.”

Project manager Ian Carnelli said Hera was “returning to the crime scene and obtaining all the scientific and technical information”.

Hera, which is about the size of a small car and carries more than a dozen scientific instruments, needs to fly past Mars in 2025 to increase its gravity and reach Dimorphos by the end of 2026. This is a satellite of the fast-spinning asteroid Didymos, which means twins in Greek. It’s 5 times bigger. At that point, the asteroid will be 120 million miles (195 million kilometers) from Earth.

Hera, controlled by a flight team in Darmstadt, Germany, will attempt to enter orbit around the pair of rocks as its flight range gradually decreases from 18 miles (30 kilometers) to half a mile (1 kilometer). The spacecraft will study the satellite for at least six months, determining its mass, shape, composition, and orbit around Didymos.

Before impact, Dimorphos circled its larger mate from three-quarters of a mile (1,189 meters) away. Scientists believe the orbit could become tighter and more elliptical, potentially even causing the satellite to fall off.

Source: www.nbcnews.com

The Hera mission to revisit an asteroid destroyed by NASA is scheduled for 2024

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Hera will soon head to the asteroid Dimorphos with CubeSats

ESA/Science Directorate

The European Space Agency (ESA) is sending a mission to find out what happened to an asteroid that NASA collided with in 2022. The Hera mission, scheduled to launch in October, will head to the asteroid Dimorphos, which NASA collided with during the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART). Mission.

The purpose of DART was to see if crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid would be a good way to protect Earth if one were to come our way.we know the impact Change the trajectory of Dimorphos The collisions around parent asteroid Didymos shorten each orbit by about 33 minutes, but details are not known about exactly how the collisions affected the asteroid or what happened next. do not have.

“To determine whether the impact left a crater or completely changed the shape of the asteroid, another spacecraft will need to return to the crime scene, because with the current data, either scenario is possible. That's why,” says Hera Mission Director. patrick michel At the Côte d'Azur Observatory in France. “Hera is a detective who will thoroughly investigate the effects.”

The mission consists of a main spacecraft that will fly up to 1 kilometer to Dimorphos, and two smaller cube-shaped satellites that are intended to land on the surface and see it up close. This research will not only be crucial for simulating potentially dangerous asteroids and how to deflect them in the future, but will also provide important scientific insights.

“Collisions have played an important role in the entire history of the solar system. We started the growth of planets through collisions, and all solid surfaces are full of impact craters,” Michel says. “If we're going to build a complete model of the solar system's collision history, we need to understand how these collisions work.” And it helps clarify how those conflicts work for us.

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Source: www.newscientist.com