Hera on course for asteroid rendezvous

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera spacecraft is on its way to the only asteroids in existence whose orbits have been deliberately altered by human action.

At the Didymos binary system, Hera will help scientists answer the questions remaining after NASA’s DART spacecraft impacted Didymos’ smaller moon Dimorphos. In doing so, Hera will help to transform asteroid deflection by kinetic impact into a well-understood and repeatable

technique for protecting Earth

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Hera recently completed the second of two deep-space manoeuvres on its journey from Earth to Didymos. The manoeuvre burned 123 kg of onboard hydrazine fuel and changed the spacecraft’s velocity by 367 m/s – a change comparable to an object accelerating from stationary to supersonic flight.