The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera planetary defense mission will pass by Mars next March, borrowing speed to help reach its target, the binary asteroid system Didymos.
In the process, the spacecraft will go up to 6,000 kilometers from the surface of the Red Planet, closer than the orbits of the two Martian moons. Its trajectory will be adjusted so that it can point its scientific instruments at Deimos, the smallest moon of Marsat a distance of up to 1,000 kilometers, and at the same time observe the own Mars.
“This approach is part of the maneuvers scheduled to carry out Hera to Didymos at the end of its two-year cruise phase,” project scientist Michael Kueppers explains in a statement. Hera of the ESA.
“By oscillating through the gravitational field of Mars In its direction of motion, the spacecraft gains additional speed for its journey. This close encounter is not part of the main mission of Hera, but we will still activate several of our scientific instruments. “It gives us another opportunity to calibrate our instruments and potentially make some scientific discoveries.”
Flight dynamics engineer Pablo Muñoz is part of the Mission Analysis team at ESA’s European Space Operations Center in Germany that calculated the trajectory: “It is really fortunate that Mars be in the right place at the right time to lend a hand Hera. This allowed us to design a trajectory that uses the gravity of Mars to push Hera towards his meeting with Didymos, which meant great fuel savings for the mission. Then, some of the excess propellant can be spent to advance the arrival at the airport by a few months. asteroid binary, thus maximizing planetary defense and scientific return from the mission.
The launch of Hera It is scheduled for October of this year, destined for asteroid Didymos, the size of a mountain, and the small moon Dimorphos, the size of a Great Pyramid, which orbits around it. On September 26, 2022, NASA’s van-sized DART spacecraft impacted the asteroid Dimorphos at about 6.1 km/s. This first test of the “kinetic impact” planetary defense method managed to modify the orbit of the asteroid target around his larger parent.
Next, Hera will conduct a close-up study of Dimorphos to gather crucial missing information on the mass, composition and structure of the asteroid that can turn the large-scale DART experiment into a well-understood and potentially repeatable planetary defense technique.
“We hope to make some discoveries”
Deimos (its name derives from the Greek “fear”), which orbits at 23,460 km Mars, is the furthest and smallest of the two Martian moons. The lumpy body has a diameter of 12.4 kilometers and a dark surface reminiscent of asteroids type C. One theory is that both Deimos what its Martian moon Phobos actually looks like asteroids captured from the belt asteroids major. However, their surface features have characteristics in common with the planet beneath them, suggesting instead an impact-based origin.
“Deimos had not been observed before with the combination of scientific instruments of Heraso we hope to make some discoveries,” adds Patrick Michel. “We will also observe in synergy with the Emirates Hope Probe mission to Marswhich launched in July 2020 and entered orbit around Mars in February 2021. Joint observations with ESA’s Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter missions are also being considered.
“In addition, the images and data we collect will help plan the Japanese-led Martian moon exploration mission, MMX, which will launch in 2026. MMX will study both moons and at the same time land a small Franco-German rover on Phobos and will acquire samples to return to Earth.”
Hera will use three of his instruments during his time through Mars and Deimos. Your main framing camera asteroids will collect visual images, while its HyperScout-H instrument will observe in a range of colors beyond the limits of the human eye, collecting mineralogical data in a total of 25 visible and near-infrared spectral bands.
Finally, its infrared thermal imaging camera is a heat mapper, capable of distinguishing features during the local night and measuring how surface temperatures change over time to help constrain surface properties. (Europa Press)
