ESA's Hera Asteroid Mission

Dragon

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Post n°1

ESA's Hera Asteroid Mission

Post by Dragon Wed Mar 01, 2023 1:17 am

ESA's Hera asteroid mission for planetary defense is about to gain its sight.

Two complete and fully tested Asteroid Framing Cameras have reached OHB in Germany for integration aboard Hera's payload module.

This instrument will provide the very first star-like view of Hera's target for the mission to steer towards the Dimorphos asteroid, which last year had its orbit altered by an impact with NASA's DART mission.

"Our October 2024 launch date is creeping ever closer, but the mission subsystems are beginning to come together as planned.

So the next time we'll see these cameras will be aboard the complete Hera flight model when overall spacecraft testing begins this autumn."

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ESA's Hera Asteroid Mission 334pu7m

Dragon

Dragon: Senior Administrator; Posts : 10677
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Post n°2

Re: ESA's Hera Asteroid Mission

Post by Dragon Wed Mar 01, 2023 1:19 am

ESA's Hera Asteroid Mission Eyes-on-hera-asteroid

Credit: Jena-Optronik

The Asteroid Framing Camera, AFC, will play a pivotal role in Hera’s mission.

As well as acquiring detailed views of the surface of Dimorphos for scientific analysis, including the crater left by the DART impact, the AFC will also be used for guidance, navigation and control.

The AFC will home in on Dimorphos when it is still a single point of light in the sky – seen in conjunction with the larger asteroid Didymos.

The AFC will then transition to close-up navigation, utilising edge detection to keep the asteroid centered in its field of view while tracking surface features to derive Hera’s exact position from the asteroid in a similar manner to self-driving car software.

Around the same size and shape as a household vase, the 1.3 kg AFC has been designed, manufactured and tested by Jena-Optronik in Germany.

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ESA's Hera Asteroid Mission 334pu7m

Dragon

Dragon: Senior Administrator; Posts : 10677
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Post n°3

Re: ESA's Hera Asteroid Mission

Post by Dragon Wed Mar 01, 2023 1:22 am

ESA's Hera Asteroid Mission Eyes-on-hera-asteroid-2

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL

Asteroid Didymos (bottom left) and its moonlet, Dimorphos, about 2.5 minutes before the impact of NASA’s DART spacecraft.

The image was taken by the on board DRACO imager from a distance of 570 miles (920 kilometers).

This image was the last to contain a complete view of both asteroids.

Didymos is roughly 2,500 feet (780 meters) in diameter; Dimorphos is about 525 feet (160 meters) in length.

Ecliptic north is toward the bottom of the image.

This image is shown as it appears on the DRACO detector and is mirror flipped across the x-axis from reality.

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ESA's Hera Asteroid Mission 334pu7m