ESA gives green light for mission to measure impact of collision on asteroid

The ESA has officially given the green light for the Hera mission. First, NASA will collide with the asteroid with a probe, after which a European spacecraft will travel to the asteroid to map the consequences of the impact.

European ministers have approved the Hera mission in Seville, Spain, so that the intended spacecraft can be built and launched. The spacecraft is expected to leave Earth in 2023 or 2024 and head for the binary asteroid Didymos, where the probe will arrive about two years later. The larger of the two asteroids is 800m in diameter, while the smaller is 150m in size.

The Hera spacecraft will release two small cubesats on site for further investigation. These tiny satellites can get much closer to the asteroid’s surface and take measurements before landing on the boulder. The aim is that these observations contribute to more knowledge and a better understanding of this ‘method’ of a collision with an asteroid, as a means of protecting the Earth from incoming asteroids.

The most important part of the joint mission is NASA’s DART spacecraft. It will be launched by SpaceX in the summer of 2021, before colliding with the smaller of the two boulders at high speed in late 2022. This will take place at a distance of 11 million kilometers from Earth and at a speed of 6 km/s. The idea here is that the boulder gets a very slightly deviated path due to the impact.