# Hera

*Spacecraft*

Going back to look at what DART did. In 2022 NASA deliberately crashed a spacecraft into the small moon Dimorphos and shortened its orbit, but nobody was there to measure the mass it hit or the crater it left. Hera arrives in late 2026 to do exactly that, which is what turns a one-off demonstration into a technique that could be used again.

| | |
| --- | --- |
| Agency | ESA |
| Launched | 2024-10-07 - still working |
| From the Sun | 228,699,805 km (-841,757 km/d) |
| From the Earth | 182,295,143 km (+583,814 km/d) |
| A signal takes | 10 min |
| Travelling at | 25.2 km/s |

Distances and speed are computed from JPL Horizons trajectories and are true of 2026-09-05, changing at the rate given beside each. The interpolation itself is good to a few kilometres; what ages these figures is the date, not the arithmetic.

## Path

A short cruise with a Mars flyby behind it, ending at the Didymos pair at the end of 2026 - where it will orbit an asteroid a few hundred metres across.

## Along the way

- 2025-03-12 — Mars flyby, with a close look at Deimos on the way past

## Elsewhere

- On the live map: https://www.orbitalmap.space/?world=solar-system&focus=hera
- The mission's own page: https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera
- This object as a page: https://www.orbitalmap.space/o/hera/
- Every object: https://www.orbitalmap.space/o/
- What this site is and what it reads: https://www.orbitalmap.space/llms.txt