The Hera Space Mission in the Context of Small Near-Earth Asteroid Missions in the Past, Present and Future

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F67985831%3A_____%2F25%3A00637645" target="_blank" >RIV/67985831:_____/25:00637645 - isvavai.cz</a>

Alternative codes found

RIV/67985815:_____/25:00637645

Result on the web

<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11214-025-01195-1" target="_blank" >https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11214-025-01195-1</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11214-025-01195-1" target="_blank" >10.1007/s11214-025-01195-1</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

The Hera Space Mission in the Context of Small Near-Earth Asteroid Missions in the Past, Present and Future

Original language description

The Hera mission of the European Space Agency was launched successfully on October 7, 2024 and will perform the first rendezvous with a binary asteroid in fall 2026. It will measure in great detail the characteristics of the binary asteroid (65803) Didymos. This will include for the first time the interior of an asteroid, as well as the outcome of the impact of the NASA DART mission on the small moon, called Dimorphos, of the binary system. The first asteroid deflection test will thus be fully validated, enabling impact model extrapolations to other cases. Hera uses a unique architecture that includes for the first time a main spacecraft and two cubesats for deep space asteroid exploration. It takes place in the context of the golden age of asteroid exploration, with no less than 8 missions in development or already flying to asteroids and great successes of past missions, in particular the two recent asteroid sample return missions OSIRIS-REx by NASA and Hayabusa2 by JAXA. Up to now, all new asteroids visited by a spacecraft have generated great surprises, especially regarding their often counter-intuitive response to external actions, showing that we are still far from fully understanding the properties of these bodies in their low -gravity environment. By investigating and interacting with small asteroids, we should eventually be able to better understand and predict their properties as a function of common characteristics identified by ground-based observations. We are not there yet. In this paper, we present how Hera will contribute to this endeavor.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

10308 - Astronomy (including astrophysics,space science)

Project

—

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2025

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Space Science Reviews

ISSN

0038-6308

e-ISSN

1572-9672

Volume of the periodical

221

Issue of the periodical within the volume

5

Country of publishing house

DE - GERMANY

Number of pages

25

Pages from-to

70

UT code for WoS article

001534736300001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-105011983152