The Hera Radio Science Experiment at Didymos
Edoardo Gramigna, Riccardo Lasagni Manghi, Marco Zannoni, Paolo, Tortora, Ryan S. Park, Giacomo Tommei, S\'ebastien Le Maistre, Patrick, Michel, Francesco Castellini, Michael Kueppers

TL;DR
The Hera radio science experiment aims to precisely measure the physical and dynamical properties of the Didymos asteroid system post-DART impact, providing critical data for asteroid deflection strategies and planetary defense.
Contribution
This work details the Hera radio science experiment and presents covariance analysis results estimating the achievable accuracy of key asteroid parameters.
Findings
Mass estimates with uncertainties better than 0.01% for Didymos
Shape and surface property insights from optical and radiometric data
Validation of measurement techniques for future asteroid deflection missions
Abstract
Hera represents the European Space Agency's inaugural planetary defense space mission and plays a pivotal role in the Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment international collaboration with NASA DART mission that performed the first asteroid deflection experiment using the kinetic impactor techniques. With the primary objective of conducting a detailed post-impact survey of the Didymos binary asteroid following the DART impact on its small moon called Dimorphos, Hera aims to comprehensively assess and characterize the feasibility of the kinetic impactor technique in asteroid deflection while conducting an in-depth investigation of the asteroid binary, including its physical and compositional properties as well as the effect of the impact on the surface and shape of Dimorphos. In this work, we describe the Hera radio science experiment, which will allow us to precisely estimate…
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Taxonomy
TopicsAstro and Planetary Science · Historical Astronomy and Related Studies · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies
