The Hera spacecraft of the European Space Agency (ESA) is designed to study asteroids as part of the Hera mission, scheduled for launch in October 2024. Its target is the asteroid Didimos ( Didymos) and Dimorphos ( Dimorphos ), which are the satellites of Didymos. . In 2022, NASA in the United States sent the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft to crash into Dimorphos. To deviate orbits, test the possibility of changing the orbits of celestial objects near Earth. and has a chance of crashing into the world. It will serve as a model to protect the world if such an event occurs in the future.

But recently ESA scientists say that before the Hera spacecraft reaches Didimos The spacecraft will fly past Mars in March 2025, coming within 6,000 kilometers of the surface of the red planet when it meets with Mars. Hera will use the star’s gravity to accelerate. This saves a lot of fuel. This will also speed up the range of the Didimos spacecraft. Scientists also plan to use Hera to fly past Mars. Explore Mars and its moon Deimos, a smaller moon further away from Mars.

Information regarding the moon Deimos The data Hera will collect will be useful in planning the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission. The goal is to explore the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos. The MMX spacecraft is scheduled to launch in 2026 to carry a small Franco-German robotic rover. Landing on the moon Phobos Next, samples of the object were brought back to Earth.

Credit: ESA-Scientific Office