As I type this, Hera's mission for planetary defense is cruising through deep space on the far side of the Sun, headed to its final destination: the Didymos binary asteroid system.
But just about a year ago, on October 7, 2024, it was unsure if the mission was ever going to take off at all.
More soon! One of my prior backgrounders, is available from the archives, here.
And. . . from the eu team:
. . .The mission needed to lift off [immediately after October 7, 2024] because it had to perform a flyby of Mars to speed it on its way to Didymos. Any delay would add years to its travel time. . . .
Since then Hera has been testing out the ‘self-driving’ technology it will use around the asteroids on Earth and the Moon, performed its flyby of Mars and imaged its very first asteroid from three million kilometres, proving the capability of its main Asteroid Framing Camera.
Next, Hera is heading for aphelion, its furthest distance from the Sun. It will reach Didymos in autumn 2026, after which it will begin its mission to find out what happened to the smaller asteroid after NASA’s DART spacecraft impacted it in September 2022. . . .
Okay -- now you know. Hera will add to the learnings we collected, when NASA's DART smashed into one of these same asteroids, in the vicinity of where Hera is now headed -- by August 2026.
Hey -- C'mon, Congress -- solve the standoff. And let America start flying efficiently, again. Onward.
नमस्ते
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