Hera

Overview

Hera is ESA's first planetary defence mission that will perform a detailed post-impact survey of the target asteroid Dimorphos, the orbiting moonlet of a binary asteroid system known as Didymos. Following NASA's DART mission impact, 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.

Key facts

Payload

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Reach

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Speed

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Weight

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IP rating

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Battery

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Power

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Autonomy

fully autonomous

Launch year

2024

Price

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Status

active