Active · Active
ESA's Hera lifted off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on 7 October 2024. It is on course for its rendezvous with the Didymos binary asteroid system, whose smaller body is Dimorphos.
- Destinations
- Launch vehicle
- SpaceX Falcon 9
- Launch site
- Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, USA
- Countries
- Germany, Italy, Luxembourg
- Mission types
- Technology demonstrator
Chronology
Mission timeline
Deployment
Hera deployed its solar wings
ESA reports solar-array deployment about one hour after the 14:52 UTC launch. The approximate delay does not establish an exact deployment minute.
Flyby
Hera performed a Mars gravity assist and observed Deimos
ESA gives the flyby date but no exact closest-approach time here; no time of day is inferred.
MarsMilestone
Completed its second deep-space manoeuvre
Mission architecture
Vehicles
Trajectory record
Time-dependent navigation trajectory
Source states place the model at the selected time. Reconstructed flight, estimates, predictions and historical mission plans are identified by interval; gaps remain visible.
Source records and sampling assumptions are retained with the repository data. Model attitude and surface appearance are illustrative.
- Hera: Reconstructed · October 7, 2024 to November 4, 2026
Provenance
Sources
Each source is listed once and labeled with the mission, event, trajectory, or destination/body context it supports.
Data verified through October 5, 2026
- Planetary defence mission Hera heading for deflected asteroid - ESA — ESAMission page · Supports: mission claims · destination/body context · event claims
- Hera on course for asteroid rendezvous - ESA — ESAMission page · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- Hera's CubeSats - ESA — ESAMission page · Supports: mission claims
- Hera revised arrival and actual carried CubeSat operations — ESAMission page · Supports: mission claims
- Milani original spacecraft and mechanism frame definitions — ESATechnical document · Supports: mission claims
- Juventas original spacecraft and mechanism frame definitions — ESATechnical document · Supports: mission claims
- Hera original housekeeping attitude source and clock — ESAArchive · Supports: mission claims
- Hera original solar-array motor-position histories — ESAArchive · Supports: mission claims
- Hera original ORBS000086 tracking cutoff and prediction — JPLArchive · Supports: mission claims
- Hera original structural, antenna, sensor and CubeSat interface coordinates — ESATechnical document · Supports: mission claims
- Hera original measured, planned, instrument and solar-array coordinate frames — ESATechnical document · Supports: mission claims
- Images from Hera’s Mars flyby (Official broadcast) - ESA — ESAMission page · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) - NASA Science — NASAMission page · Supports: destination/body context
- Planet Sizes and Locations in Our Solar System — NASAOther · Supports: destination/body context