ESA's Hera Spacecraft Days Away from Asteroid Didymos Arrival
Written by AI from earthsky.org's report. Not checked by a person.
ESA's Hera spacecraft, the follow-up mission to NASA's 2022 DART asteroid impact, is days away from arriving at the Didymos binary asteroid system to survey the aftermath of humanity's first planetary-defence test.
ESA's Hera spacecraft, launched in October 2024, is on track to arrive at the Didymos binary asteroid system on 4 November 2026, a month earlier than originally scheduled thanks to outstanding propulsion performance. On November 1, 2026, the craft was completing final braking manoeuvres, having already captured images on 18 October from just 1,280 kilometres away that resolved both Didymos (780 metres across) and its smaller companion Dimorphos (151 metres across) as two separate objects — the mission's first light. Hera's goal is to conduct a detailed forensic survey of the impact crater left by NASA's DART spacecraft, which deliberately struck Dimorphos in 2022 and shortened its orbital period around Didymos by 32 minutes, the first confirmed change to a celestial body's motion by human action. Hera is carrying two briefcase-sized CubeSats — Milani, built by Italian researchers, and Juventas, developed in Luxembourg — which will fly independently around the asteroids, performing spectral surface analysis and radar sounding of the interior. ESA describes the mission as a 'crime scene investigation' that will quantify the physical effects of kinetic impactors, turning DART's proof of concept into data that can inform real planetary-defence planning for future threatening asteroids.
