European Space Agency – Small Asteroid Radar CubeSat

This 10-cm box will make history as the smallest space-flying radar instrument – and the first ever to explore the interior of an asteroid. Target? The asteroid Dimorphos, whose orbit was on the night of September 26 in a collision with NASA dart mission It deflected and shot a 10,000-kilometre long cloud of dust into space.

Connected to a quad of 1.5 meter antenna booms, this radar device is carried on board a suitcase roughly the size of hand luggage. Juventa CubeSat Fly towards Dimorphos. CubeSat will be on board the ESA space probe in two years Hira beginning.

Hera – Currently under construction in OHB In and around Germany Avio In Italy – you will fly to Dimorphos to closely study the effects of the DART impact, gather key information on the size of the DART crater and determine the mass of Dimorphos, as well as its internal composition and structure.

The additional Hera data will help make the distraction experience a well-understood and repeatable technology that could one day be used.

Indeed, HERA is not just one spacecraft, but three: It takes with it the first European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft to make additional observations of the asteroid target. The radar holder will be accompanied by Juventus Melaniewhich is an examination of the surface and dust composition of Dimorphos.

The “JuRa” instrument is a miniature version of the radar used aboard the European Space Agency’s comet mission rosette Airborne and used to study beneath the black surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It was created by the group around Dr. Alan Herrick AM Institut “Planétologie et d” Astrophysique” In the Grenoble University It is d. Dirk Plettemeier Collection in Dresden Technical Universitytogether Emtronics In Luxembourg, responsible for manufacturing from the device, advanced.