Category: hera

Europe’s space agency approves the Hera anti-asteroid mission

[ad_1] Hera will carry two CubeSats that can fly extremely close to the asteroid’s surface before touching down. Those briefcase-sized spacecraft will act like drones, capturing vital data about the impact crater and giving scientists data including the mass of the asteroid that will help them deduce its composition. The aim, ESA said, is to […]

NASA and ESA will team up to deflect Earth-bound asteroids

[ad_1] NASA will provide the collider, the Double Asteroid Impact Test (DART). It should launch in summer 2021 and will smack into the smaller of the two Didymos asteroids at about 14,764MPH. An Italian cubesat, LICIACube, will study the moment of impact. After that, the ESA will launch a Hera probe in October 2024 to […]