ESA Hera Launch mission spacex falcon 9 rocket study NASA Dart mission

The American space agency NASA had tested the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission in the year 2022. Then a spacecraft was hit by an asteroid named Dimorphos. Initial results were encouraging and NASA confirmed that the collision caused a change in the asteroid’s path. NASA had hoped that in the future, when an asteroid comes near the Earth, its direction will be changed due to a similar collision. However, to find out how successful NASA was in its objective, SpaceX is going to launch a spacecraft.

According to reports, the European Space Agency’s ‘Hera’ spacecraft will fly to Dimorphos for post-impact evaluation. ‘Hera’ spacecraft will find out what was the impact on the dimorphosed asteroid due to the collision with the spacecraft.

‘Hera’ spacecraft and its two cubesats Milani and Juventus will be launched by SpaceX’s Falcon-9 rocket. It is to be launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. If everything goes as per plan, ‘Hera’ will take 2 years to reach the dimorphous asteroid. It can reach there by the end of 2026. The spacecraft will find out how big the crater in Dimorphos was left by the collision in 2022.

What is Dimorphos?

Dimorphos is a small asteroid satellite. It was discovered in the year 2003. It is a moon of Didymos.

What happened with DART mission?

The DART collision shortened Dimorphos’ orbit from 11 hours 55 minutes to 11 hours and 23 minutes. NASA expected that the collision would cause a change in Dimorphos’s speed by up to 10 minutes, and the results were even better than that. Dimorphos’ orbital period was accelerated to 32 minutes.