The Hera spacecraft launches to investigate the remains of the DART mission

Liputan6.com, Jakarta – Hera space probe it was successfully launched into space on October 7, 2024. This latest mission from the European Space Agency (ESA) aims to further investigate the impact of the DART mission’s collision with the asteroid Dimorphos.

ESA launched Hera using a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 10.52 ET (21.52 WIB) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, United States. Accompanying this spacecraft are two CubeSats, a group of small satellites that are expected to reach the asteroid Dimorphos in 2026.

Launching the official ESA website on Wednesday (09/20/2024), the trio will conduct a “crime scene investigation” to solve the remaining mysteries of the double asteroid system. The Hera probe is expected to reach the double asteroid system in October 2026.

When you get there, space exploration This will be almost 195 million kilometers from Earth. Hera will also stop before Mars in mid-March 2025.

This will give the spacecraft the extra momentum it needs to reach Didymos and Dimorphos two years after launch. In addition to testing its 11 instruments, Hera will fly within 6,000 kilometers of the surface of Mars and see one of the two Martian moons, namely Deimos, from a distance of 1,000 kilometers.

Dimorphos is an asteroid that was hit by the Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) mission on September 26, 2022. NASA’s spacecraft intentionally collided with Dimorphos and managed to hit it right in the middle the space rock at a speed of about 24,000 km / hour.

The powerful collision occurred more than 11 million kilometers from Earth. DART mission represents the first test of humanity’s ability to deflect a potentially dangerous asteroid that threatens Earth.

Not only did DART succeed in altering the path of Dimorphos, shortening its trip around the asteroid partner Didymos by about 30 minutes. This mission also completely changes the shape of the asteroid.

NASA, through this mission, carried out a full-scale evaluation of the technology for the transfer of asteroid orbits for planetary protection. The institute wanted to see if kinetic effects would be enough to change the movement of celestial bodies in space.

According to the Live Science page on Wednesday (09/10/2024), the asteroids Dimorphos and Didymos do not pose any serious threat to the earth. However, this double asteroid system is a perfect target for testing blast technology because the size of Dimorphos is comparable to asteroids that could threaten Earth.

Astronomers have been monitoring the impact of the collision since the collision in September 2022. As a result, they discovered that the DART spacecraft had changed the way Dimorphos moved.

DART moves the orbital period of this lunar asteroid, or how long it takes to make one revolution around Didymos. ESA astronomers are looking to find out whether the DART probe left a crack or its motion on the reshaped Dimorphos.

The Hera mission will determine the exact composition of the double asteroid system.