"ESA's Hera Mission: Exploring Asteroids with Precision and Imagination"
The team working on ESA's Hera asteroid mission, which aims to gather data about the Dimorphos moonlet, has used images from NASA's DART mission to visualize what it would be like for human explorers to follow in the footsteps of the CubeSats that will land on Dimorphos. The boulders covering Dimorphos are much larger than they appear, with the largest ones being house-sized. Moving across these boulders would involve climbing and jumping, but caution is needed to avoid exceeding the local escape velocity or triggering rock avalanches. The low gravity environment and varying surface characteristics pose challenges for navigation and movement. Hera's CubeSats, Juventas and Milani, will perform their own observations and gather data on the asteroid's interior, mineral composition, and surface characteristics before landing. The mission is scheduled to launch in October 2024.