A mission that nearly never left Earth is now halfway to its destination
One year ago, a combination of launch anomalies and a hurricane threatened to ground the Hera mission indefinitely. Today, the spacecraft is cruising through deep space, having successfully navigated a Mars flyby and proven its autonomous capabilities as it races toward a binary asteroid system.
The Hera mission, led by the European Space and Space Agency (ESA), is currently navigating the far side of the Sun. Its journey began under intense pressure on 7 October 2024, when the spacecraft faced a grounded launcher and the approach of Hurricane Milton to Cape Canaveral. A delay would have been catastrophic, as the mission required a specific trajectory involving a Mars flyby to reach its target. Fortunately, the launch proceeded just thirty minutes after the skies cleared.
Since its departure, Hera has transitioned from a survival phase to a period of active testing. The spacecraft successfully completed a Mars flyby in March 2025, which served as a vital opportunity to test its instruments near a planetary body. It has also demonstrated the functionality of its Asteroid Framing Camera by imaging an asteroid from three million kilometres away. Crucially, the mission is testing 'self-driving' autonomous navigation technology, developed by teams at OHB in Germany and GMV in Spain, which allows the craft to navigate uncertain environments without real-time commands from Earth.
The ultimate goal is the Didymos binary asteroid system. Hera is investigating the aftermath of NASA’s September 2022 DART mission, which intentionally struck the asteroid Dimorphos to test planetary defence. Due to the reliability of Hera's propulsion system and a more aggressive braking manoeuvre plan, the spacecraft is now expected to arrive in November 2026, one month ahead of its original schedule. It will not travel alone; two small CubeSats, Milani and Juventas, are hitching a ride to conduct their own close-up investigations.
Source: Hera marks one year on its way to Didymos
