Europe's Hera Mission Approaches Asteroids Didymos & Dimorphos | ESA

Europe's Hera Mission Approaches Asteroids Didymos & Dimorphos | ESA

Watch the European Space Agency's Hera spacecraft approach its target asteroids from 270,280 km to 360 km away. This is the final approach of the Hera mission for planetary defense to its target Didymos and Dimorphos asteroids, as seen through its main Asteroid Framing Camera, designed for navigation and science. 

The Hera Mission will perform the most detailed exploration yet of a binary asteroid system—although binaries make up 15% of all known asteroids, one has never been surveyed in detail.

The first image making up this approach sequence was acquired on October 5, 2026 from 270,280 km away in space with the Didymos binary asteroid system seen as a single bright point, circled in red. The last image was acquired on October 27 from just 360 km away. 

During the second half of October Hera performed braking maneuvers to reduce its velocity from more than 12 km/s relative to Earth down to near zero relative to the asteroids. 

The smaller 151-m-diameter Dimorphos asteroid is the first Solar System object to have had its orbit measurably changed by human action. Following the impact of NASA's 580 kg DART spacecraft in 2022, moving at about 6.1 km/s, the orbit of Dimorphos was shortened around the 780-m-diameter Didymos asteroid by 33 minutes plus or minus a minute—a much higher change than was previously predicted. 

ESA’s Hera, after its two-year flight to these double asteroids—currently 196.8 million km from Earth—is about to perform a close-up ‘crash site investigation’. Hera’s discoveries will help turn the kinetic impact method of asteroid deflection from a one-off experiment to a well understood and potentially repeatable technique if ever Earth comes under threat. 

Detailed images of both asteroids will be unveiled on November 25, 2026. 

Hera is carrying two small CubeSat spacecraft, called Milani and Juventas. Hera has a mass of 1,128 kg (2,487 lb). Its payload includes cameras, an altimeter, and a spectrometer. The spacecraft was launched on October 7, 2024, by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. 

Learn more about the Hera Mission:
https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera

Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
Duration: 22 seconds
Release Date: Nov. 5, 2026

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