Space & Cosmos

Hera probe departs to investigate the aftermath of DART’s asteroid impact

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will send the European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft into space from a launch pad in Florida. Credit: SpaceX

The European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft is departing to make follow-up observations of Dimorphos, two years after a previous spacecraft crashed the asteroid into a different orbit around the larger space rock.

Scientists say a close look at Hera, which is scheduled to move millions of miles away from Earth starting in 2026, will help protect the planet from future threats posed by killer asteroids. There is.

“Hera’s ability to closely study asteroid targets will be exactly what we need for planetary defense operations,” ESA Planetary Defense Director Richard Moisle said in a news release today. “We can imagine scenarios where reconnaissance missions are quickly dispatched to assess whether follow-up diversion actions are needed.”

The car-sized spacecraft arrived in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 10:52 a.m. ET (14:52 UTC) today as Hurricane Milton was approaching from the Gulf of Mexico. It was launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The day before the launch, forecasters predicted only a 15% chance that the weather would be acceptable. Nevertheless, SpaceX persisted.

Due to mission requirements, the first stage booster could not be recovered this time, as is customary for Falcon 9 missions. This was Booster’s 23rd and final mission. A little more than an hour after liftoff, the rocket’s second stage placed Hera into an interplanetary orbit.

During its two-year cruise to Dimorphos, the spacecraft will perform a series of course-altering maneuvers, including a swing past Mars, which will give it a chance to observe Deimos, one of the Red Planet’s moons. It will be done.

Hera will return in 2022 to the site of the space collision between Dimorphos, which is about 530 feet in diameter, or the size of Egypt’s Great Pyramids, and NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test Spacecraft (DART).

DART was purposely sent into the collision with Dimorphos to measure the impact of the collision on the asteroid’s orbit around a larger asteroid known as Didymos. After the collision, scientists determined that Dimorphos’ orbital period had been shortened by 33 minutes, equivalent to a shortening of about 5%. They also saw a plume of debris extending thousands of miles into space.

Hera is designed to conduct a more detailed “impact site investigation,” providing data on the shape and composition of Dimorphos and the characteristics of the crater left by the impact.

The spacecraft will deploy two microsatellites to aid in the investigation. One of the cubesats, known as Milani, will study the composition of Dimorphos and the dust around it. Meanwhile, the Juventus small satellite will carry out the first-ever subsurface radar exploration of an asteroid. In the latter stages of the six-month study, Hera will test an experimental self-driving mode that will drive autonomously around Didymos and Dimorphos.

DART’s impact data will be incorporated into plans to change the asteroid’s orbit if it turns out to pose a significant threat of collision with Earth. Such a strategy may require action to be taken years before the encounter.

“By the end of the Hera mission, the Didymos pair will be the most well-studied asteroid in history and should help protect Earth from asteroid threats,” said Hera mission scientist Michael Kuppers. said.

Provided by Universe Today

Citation: Hera probe departs to see aftermath of DART asteroid impact (October 8, 2024), October 8, 2024 https://phys.org/news/2024-10-hera-probe- Retrieved from aftermath-dart-asteroid.html

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