Despite the threat of Hurricane Milton, the first European planetary defense mission, Hera, has launched from Cape Canaveral.
Launched with a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the European Space Agency’s mission will visit the Didymos binary asteroid system by 2026, which was impacted two years ago by NASA’s Dart mission. The goal is to investigate the consequences of the impact to provide valuable information in case it becomes necessary to deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.
Esa: Dimorphos will be the most studied asteroid in history
“By the end of Hera’s observations, Dimorphos will become the most studied asteroid in history, which is crucial because if a body of this size hit Earth, it could destroy an entire city. What an exciting time to work in space,” wrote Josef Aschbacher, the Director General of the European Space Agency, on X, commenting on the launch of the Hera mission.
Italy’s significant contribution to the mission
One of the two cubesats that will be released by Hera for close-up observations, called Milani, was made in Italy by Tayvak. The National Institute for Astrophysics is also responsible for the Vista instrument (Volatile In Situ Thermogravimeter Analyser), a sensor for analyzing the dust environment of the Didymos-Dimorphos system aboard Milani. Studying the dust around Didymos is essential to understand the cohesion of these celestial bodies with the aim of potentially deflecting them from dangerous orbits. In addition to the activities on Vista, INAF actively collaborates with two other instruments on the mission: the Aspect spectrometer and the Tiri infrared camera.
Industrial contributions
Thales Alenia Space has produced important equipment, including the deep space transponder, built in Italy at the Rome and L’Aquila plants, which will enable solid communication with the ground station.
Leonardo also contributed by providing the solar panels that will power the probe. Made at the Nerviano (Milan) plant, they consist of two wings with three panels each, totaling about 14 square meters and over 1,600 cells, each almost twice the size of a credit card.
Additionally, Ohb-Italia is involved in the creation of important onboard systems such as the electrical power system, while propulsion has been assigned to Avio. Tsd Space, an SME based in Naples, has finally created the Spacecraft Monitoring Camera (SMC) for Hera.
