If we talk about Dimorphos, everyone thinks of DART for obvious reasons, but The truth is that Hera will also play a crucial role. in a mission on the results of which the future of humanity may depend. Well, at this point in the news, I understand that there are two potential readership profiles depending on the interpretation of the news. On the one hand, of course, there are those who know exactly what I’m talking about and who therefore want to know the latest news about Hera. And on the other hand, there are those who don’t know and may be wondering if I’m talking about Greek mythology, the new Marvel thing, or the myriad of Disney productions in the Star Wars universe that it plans to release and cancel within 48 hours.

So let’s start by clarifying for those who don’t know what I’m talking about. We first told you about Hera in 2019, when the mission was approved by the ESA (European Space Agency). We already explained to you back then that it was a mission accomplished as part of the AIDA joint mission (Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment), in conjunction with NASA’s DART mission that took place earlier, both related to Dimorphos, an asteroid that orbits the next larger one, Didymos, and forms a binary system.

This dual mission is looking for a possible solution to the threat of a meteor entering a collision course with our planet. So DART deliberately collided with Dimorphos at the end of September 2022 and a few weeks later we already had the first reports that the mission that tried to check if this collision could change its trajectory was absolutely successful. However, this information is only a first approximation, and that’s exactly where Hera comes in.

Departure! ESA’s Hera mission launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, USA on October 7 at 10:52 local time (16:52 SEL, 14:52 UTC). pic.twitter.com/FODxNQsteh

—European Space Agency (@esa) October 7, 2024

So just over two years after the success of DART, Hera is already heading to Didymosafter taking off from Cape Canaveral a few hours ago on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, in a launch that was not clear until practically the last moment, as the weather conditions did not seem to be the most suitable. In the end, however, it was done and, to everyone’s delight, it was a complete success.

The journey will be long, the arrival of Hera in the Didymos and Dimorphos system will not be produced until autumn 2026as the goal of the mission is to verify the long-term effects of the small initial deviation that a collision with Dart could cause. It has its own instruments for data collection at the moment, but it also carries some CubeSats, like the one of Italian origin that accompanied Dart, which will allow us to get more data and observe both bodies with a greater perspective.

Additional information and main image: ESA