# Hera
*missions*

ESA Hera is a planetary defence mission to the Didymos binary asteroid system. Launched October 7, 2024; Mars flyby March 12, 2025 for gravity assist and instrument calibration; Didymos rendezvous targeted November 2026. Prime contractor OHB SE. Carries HyperScout H (hyperspectral, 650-950 nm), Asteroid Framing Camera (AFC), PALT altimeter, TIRI thermal IR (JAXA), and deploys Juventas and Milani CubeSats. HyperScout H is the EO-heritage catalogue anchor.

## Specifications
- **operator**: esa
- **current status**: operational
- **actual launch**: 2024-10-07
- **entity type**: mission
- **last verified date**: 2026-06-11
- **verified by**: agency-doc
- **claim status**: unclaimed
- **provider**: esa
- **attributes**: {"operator":"esa","current_status":"operational","actual_launch":"2024-10-07","summary":"ESA Hera is a planetary defence mission to the Didymos binary asteroid system. Launched October 7, 2024; Mars flyby March 12, 2025 for gravity assist and instrument calibration; Didymos rendezvous targeted November 2026. Prime contractor OHB SE. Carries HyperScout H (hyperspectral, 650-950 nm), Asteroid Framing Camera (AFC), PALT altimeter, TIRI thermal IR (JAXA), and deploys Juventas and Milani CubeSats. HyperScout H is the EO-heritage catalogue anchor."}
- **relevance**: in-scope

## Editorial
Hera is an ESA planetary-defence mission to the Didymos binary asteroid system, launched 7 October 2024 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Prime contractor is OHB SE. The spacecraft completed a Mars gravity-assist flyby on 12 March 2025, which was also used for instrument calibration including Earth-view imaging by HyperScout H. Didymos rendezvous is targeted for late 2026, approximately one month earlier than originally planned.[^esa-hera-targets-early]

Hera carries four instruments on the main spacecraft. HyperScout H is a hyperspectral imager contributed by cosine, covering 650 to 950 nm according to its peer-reviewed instrument paper[^hs-h-ssr-2025] (the mission website lists 400 to 1000 nm[^heramission-instruments]; the narrower range from the 2025 Space Science Reviews paper is treated as the instrument design specification). The Asteroid Framing Camera (AFC), provided by JenaOptronik, delivers visible imaging. PALT is a planetary altimeter and lidar. TIRI is a thermal infrared imager contributed by JAXA. Two CubeSats, Juventas and Milani, are planned for deployment at Didymos to conduct radar sounding and dust-environment measurements.[^heramission-instruments][^eoportal-hera]

The primary mission objective is characterising the physical properties and surface composition of Didymoon (Dimorphos) following the DART impact in 2022, supporting planetary-defence assessment. HyperScout H is an EO-heritage instrument adapted for asteroid science; its catalogue relevance lies in this instrument lineage.[^hs-h-ssr-2025]

## Compositional position
- Hera --[mission_payloads]--> hyperscout-h (products)

## Sources
- [esa-hera-targets-early] | ESA Hera targets early arrival at Didymos asteroids | https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera/ESA_s_Hera_targets_early_arrival_at_Didymos_asteroids | tier=agency-doc | accessed=2026-06-11
- [heramission-instruments] | Hera Mission Instruments, heramission.space | https://www.heramission.space/hera-instruments | tier=operator-marketing | accessed=2026-06-11
- [hs-h-ssr-2025] | HyperScout-H: the hyperspectral imager for the ESA Hera mission, Space Science Reviews 2025 | https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.08047 | tier=peer-reviewed | accessed=2026-06-11
- [wikipedia-hera] | Hera (space mission), Wikipedia | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hera_(space_mission) | tier=community | accessed=2026-06-11
- [eoportal-hera] | Hera mission, eoPortal | https://www.eoportal.org/satellite-missions/hera | tier=community | accessed=2026-06-11

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Source: https://eo-atlas.org/missions/hera
Maintainer: SpectraWorks B.V. (CC-BY 4.0)