Hera mission

Hera is the European contribution to an ESANASA doublespacecraft AIDA mission, which is intended to test whether a kinetic deflection technique can be used to shift the orbit of an asteroid. The target of the mission is a double asteroid system, called Didymos, which will come a comparatively close 11 million km to Earth in 2022. The 800 mdiameter main body is orbited by a 170 mdiameter moon, informally called Didymoon. In 2022, NASA s DART spacecraft will first perform a kinetic impact on the smaller of the two bodies, and, later, Hera will followup with a detailed postimpact survey that will turn this grandscale experiment into a wellunderstood and repeatable planetary defence technique. Hera will also gather crucial scientific data on asteroids as a whole by carefully studying the exterior and interior properties of both bodies in the system. The spacecraft will also host two 6unit cubesats that will be deployed near Didymos to perform, for the first time ever, multipo