The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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Heli Greus, Hera Product Assurance and Safety Manager at ESA, presents Hera and its instruments before the spacecraft left the Agency’s technical heart in the Netherlands. Her contribution to the mission is to make sure that whatever goes insite Hera will survive the space environment. To her, the biggest challenge was combining Hera with the CubeSats Juventas and Milani, which follow industrial rules and a ‘NewSpace’ approach.
Hera is ESA's first planetary defence mission, heading to a unique target among the 1.3 million known asteroids of our Solar System. On 26 September 2022 NASA’s DART mission performed humankind’s first test of asteroid deflection by crashing into the Great-Pyramid-sized Dimorphos moonlet. The result was a shift in its orbit around the mountain-sized Didymos main asteroid.
Now comes ESA’s own contribution to this international collaboration: the Hera mission will revisit Dimorphos to gather vital close-up data about the deflected body.
Find more videos from Space Team Europe for Hera.
Find more videos from Space Team Europe.