The Hera mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) is already flying towards Dimorphos, the first asteroid diverted by humans on a planetary defense mission. To launch it, SpaceX had to fly faster than ever.
ESA’s Hera mission begins. Hera lifted off on Tuesday at 14:52 UTC from the Space Force’s SLC-40 platform at Cape Canaveral. An hour later, it successfully deployed its solar panels, and escaped from Earth.
Neither the weather (the forecast was 15% favorable the night before), nor the suspension of SpaceX flights due to a recent failure of its second stage prevented the launch. The Falcon 9 rocket had to use all the available fuel and a deorbit ignition was not planned, so the FAA authorized takeoff as an exception to the suspension of SpaceX flights.
Speed record. The second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket flew at 43,040 kilometers per hour to place Hera on a direct exit trajectory away from Earth, heading for the asteroid Didymos and its moon Dimorphos.
It’s a new speed record for SpaceX. The company will have to reach even greater speed to launch NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft towards Jupiter in a few days, but this second launch is scheduled on a Falcon Heavy, a rocket three times more powerful.
Goodbye to a veteran rocket. As for the first stage of the Falcon 9, it was the historic B1061 booster that had launched the Crew-1 and Crew-2 manned missions, among more than a hundred satellites.
Hera marked her twenty-third and final throw. The rocket was scrapped to take advantage of every last drop of fuel and, therefore, could not land again. This is not the first time that SpaceX has released its reusable rockets in this way, retiring them with very energetic missions.
What the Hera mission consists of. NASA and ESA collaborate on a double planetary defense mission (AIDA) to deflect an asteroid. NASA did the dirty work with the DART probe, which impacted the asteroid Dimorphos on September 26, 2022, changing its orbit around a larger asteroid called Didymos.
ESA’s Hera mission is now on its way to the asteroid pair (Dimorphos is the moon of Didymos) to collect data on Dimorphos and analyze the results from DART, a maneuver we may need in the future to deflect an asteroid heading towards the Earth. That’s why China has announced its own mission to deflect another asteroid, 219 VL5.
Why didn’t they fly at the same time. It would have been ideal, to study the impact of DART at the time it occurred. And this was originally planned in the European AIM mission, but AIM was canceled by ESA due to its high Price, as had already happened with the previous Don Quixote mission.
Hera took shape from contract signing to launch in just four years, unusual for deep space missions. With a budget of 6 billion euros, it is scheduled to reach Didymos and Dimorphos in two years.
Spanish participation. Hera has an important Spanish participation. The GMV company followed the launch from Tres Cantos after providing the guidance, navigation and control (GNC) system, as well as software and support for ESA’s operations and flight dynamics control.
Approach to the moon Deimos of Mars. Hera will make a gravity assist maneuver around Mars in March 2025, which will give the spacecraft additional speed for its rendezvous with Didymos.
During gravity assist, Hera will survey the Martian moon Deimos, deploying its instruments for scientific use for the first time.
What’s on board. Hera is a probe the size of a car. It carries two miniature CubeSats on board. Between the three of them they have a total of 12 instruments, including a pair of cameras and an infrared thermal sensor.
The missatellites are the size of a shoe box and will be the ones to land on the asteroid, maneuvering in ultra-low gravity to obtain scientific data before landing. The main ship will autonomously navigate around the asteroids by visually tracking them.
The first meteor shower caused. The impact of DART is worth further study. According to observations made from Earth, the NASA spacecraft managed to reduce the orbital period of Dimorphos around Didymos by 33 minutes, almost 5% of its original value.
Upon impact, a cloud of debris was thrown thousands of kilometers into space. In the coming decades we will know if the Dimorphos fragments resulting from the DART impact will reach our planet. It would be the first meteor shower caused by humans.
Image | ESA, SpaceX
In WorldOfSoftware | We knew that the DART mission changed the trajectory of Dimorphos. What we didn’t know is that it also changed its shape