ESA title

As part of the world’s first test of asteroid deflection, Hera will perform a detailed post-impact survey of the target asteroid, Dimorphos – the orbiting moonlet of a binary asteroid system known as Didymos. Now that NASA’s DART mission has impacted the moonlet, Hera will turn the grand-scale experiment into a well-understood and repeatable planetary defence technique. Demonstrating new technologies from autonomous navigation around an asteroid to low gravity proximity operations, Hera will be humankind’s first probe to rendezvous with a binary asteroid system and Europe’s flagship Planetary Defender.

Hera Launch: October 2024

Target: Dimorphos

Hera rendezvous: December 2026

Hera
Infrared imaging of the impact crater
Space Safety

Industry starts work on Europe’s Hera planetary defence mis…

15/09/2020 8613 views 63 likes
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Didymos asteroids
Space Safety

Name given to asteroid target of ESA’s planetary defence mi…

23/06/2020 6841 views 33 likes
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Space Safety
Space Safety

An Agency for asteroids

23/06/2020 4519 views 27 likes
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Incoming asteroid
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ESA highlights protection for our planet ahead of Asteroid …

22/06/2020 8068 views 67 likes
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Brian May, Astrophysicist and Rockstar
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Queen’s Brian May works to probe origin of asteroids

02/06/2020 10248 views 64 likes
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Hera leaving Earth
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Amateur astronomers: help choose asteroid flybys for Hera

26/11/2019 4117 views 34 likes
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Juventas CubeSat closing on asteroid
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Luxembourg firm enabling peek inside asteroid

18/11/2019 2748 views 21 likes
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Hera scans DART’s impact crater
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Apollo astronaut champions Hera for planetary defence

05/11/2019 3589 views 44 likes
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Juventas radar CubeSat
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Hera’s radar CubeSat will peer into asteroid’s heart

23/10/2019 2882 views 5 likes
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NASA's DART impacting asteroid
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Driving diamond into asteroid dust helps model planetary de…

19/09/2019 2664 views 13 likes
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Hera approaches the impact scene
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A burst of asteroid activity in Europe

10/09/2019 13018 views 101 likes
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Hera at Dimorphos
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Europe and US teaming up for asteroid deflection

02/09/2019 30783 views 162 likes
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CubeSat approaching asteroid
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When CubeSats meet asteroid

28/06/2019 6410 views 78 likes
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DART impacting asteroid
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Will DART make its target asteroid go wobbly? Hera will see

27/06/2019 3434 views 54 likes
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Asteroid Ryugu
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ESA marks Asteroid Day on 30 June

24/06/2019 5966 views 57 likes
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Hera surveying Dimorphos
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Hera asteroid mission’s brain to be radiation-hard and fail…

11/06/2019 5076 views 65 likes
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Side by side observation and artist's impression of Asteroid 1999 KW4
Space Safety

Binary asteroids, key to Earth’s planetary defence

04/06/2019 6762 views 56 likes
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Hera mission logo
Space Safety

Hera gets its own logo

03/05/2019 2865 views 15 likes
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APEX CubeSat
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Hera’s APEX CubeSat will reveal the stuff that asteroids ar…

02/05/2019 6798 views 68 likes
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Juventas CubeSat
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Hera’s CubeSat to perform first radar probe of an asteroid

01/05/2019 9513 views 87 likes
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SCI impactor on way to Ryugu asteroid
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Earth vs. asteroids: humans strike back

22/04/2019 12529 views 148 likes
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Infrared imaging of the impact crater
Space Safety

Self-driving spacecraft set for planetary defence expedition

05/04/2019 6636 views 63 likes
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Bright spots on Ceres
Space Safety

ESA’s Hera asteroid mission borrows eyes of NASA’s Dawn

18/03/2019 7615 views 96 likes
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Gran Telescopio Canarias telescope
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World’s best telescopes target asteroids for ESA’s Hera mis…

05/03/2019 4359 views 38 likes
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Hera spacecraft
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Close encounters: planning for extra Hera flyby

20/02/2019 5165 views 81 likes
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Hera at Didymos
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ESA plans mission to smallest asteroid ever visited

04/02/2019 15545 views 130 likes
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Hera networking with CubeSats
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CubeSats joining Hera mission to asteroid system

07/01/2019 13120 views 117 likes
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Andrea Milani (1948–2018)
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Andrea Milani (1948–2018)

29/11/2018 4586 views 28 likes
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Hera validates crater formation models
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Berlin museum hosts meeting on Europe’s next asteroid missi…

13/11/2018 2002 views 32 likes
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Hera CubeSats deployed
Space Safety

ESA choosing CubeSat companions for Hera asteroid mission

25/09/2018 5507 views 49 likes
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Hera networking with CubeSats
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Germany’s OHB to bring ESA’s Hera asteroid mission to next …

10/08/2018 5986 views 43 likes
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Asteroid Ryugu
Space Safety

Spinning-top asteroids, from Rosetta to Hayabusa2 – and may…

18/07/2018 8122 views 84 likes
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Asteroid Day 2018 live from Luxembourg
Enabling & Support

Asteroid Day live from Luxembourg

28/06/2018 5269 views 52 likes
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Asteroid Day Postcard
Space Safety

Asteroid Day - ready for delivery

26/06/2018 2599 views 28 likes
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Hera measures Didymoon's size, shape and mass
Space Safety

Earth’s first missions to a binary asteroid, for planetary …

25/06/2018 13230 views 153 likes
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Asteroid passing Earth
Enabling & Support

Asteroid Day 2018

29/05/2018 5943 views 60 likes
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Future Flyeye survey telescope
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ESA marks #Asteroid Day

21/06/2017 8724 views 95 likes
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Looking up
Space Safety

Asteroid sleuths go back to the future

10/01/2017 6891 views 121 likes
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Asteroid passing Earth
Enabling & Support

UN recognises 30 June as Asteroid Day

07/12/2016 4056 views 52 likes
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The AIM spacecraft watches from afar as DART approaches and hits Didymoon
Space Safety

The making of....

24/11/2016 1953 views 12 likes
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Asteroid Lutetia
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15 000 space rocks and counting

27/10/2016 7911 views 133 likes
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Hera networking with CubeSats
Space Safety

Why asteroids matter - an industrial perspective

10/08/2016 2648 views 7 likes
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Space challenge start screen
Space Safety

AIM – Space Challenge

30/06/2016 7910 views 59 likes
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Future Flyeye telescope
Enabling & Support

Every day is Asteroid Day at ESA

30/06/2016 7037 views 73 likes
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Asteroid risk corridor
Enabling & Support

Asteroids: assessing the risk

30/06/2016 6681 views 50 likes
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AIM and CubeSats watch impact
Space Safety

Highly impactful: 10 facts about ESA’s Asteroid Impact Miss…

30/06/2016 4267 views 45 likes
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Binary asteroids
Space Safety

Binary asteroids, the ins and outs

10/06/2016 2255 views 2 likes
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Space Safety

The art of AIM

27/05/2016 1159 views 11 likes
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Concept for artwork for the AIM tycoon game
Space Safety

AIM, the game

06/05/2016 2485 views 11 likes
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Space Safety

AIDA at EGU 2016

29/04/2016 981 views 2 likes
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