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NASA’s DART mission punched the Didymos asteroid in 2022 — now it’s time to go back
The Hera spacecraft will assess the DART mission outcome.
The European Space Agency (ESA) is running some of the final tests required to launch its Hera mission this October, which aims to investigate the asteroid that NASA intentionally slammed a spacecraft into back in 2022. “The system for Hera’s interplanetary cruise phase — which of course is the most critical to be ready for launch — is now fully tested using the actual spacecraft flight model,” said ESA GNC engineer Jesus Gil Fernandez in the announcement blog. You can read all the specific technical details about how the ESA is planning for Hera to overcome these navigational issues, including surface feature tracking and repeat velocity changes, in the agency’s blog post.
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