163-13 Planetary Defense, Understanding the DART Impact, and the Hera Mission: Contributions to 3D context understanding

Session: Impact Cratering Processes Across the Solar System: In Memory of Dr. Bevan M. French

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Impact events are known to have had severe effects on the geological and biological evolution of the Earth. The identification of potentially dangerous asteroids that might collide with Earth has substantially improved in recent years, and attempts to develop technologies to protect our planet from asteroid impacts, in particular to slightly alter the orbits of such near-Earth objects (NEOs), have been started. There are also recent attempts to bring this discussion to a wider public as part of the just declared UN “International Year of Asteroid Awareness and Planetary Defense” in 2029.

As part of international planetary defense efforts, the European Hera spacecraft, launched in October 2024, will from late 2026 onwards study the Didymos binary asteroid system that had been impacted in 2022 by the NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft; Didymos’ moon Dimorphos is the only asteroidal body so far to have had its orbit shifted by human intervention. These studies contribute to the validation of the kinetic impact method to deviate an NEO from a colliding trajectory with Earth. Among other goals, it will measure the size and morphology of the crater created by the DART impact, and study the (new) composition and physical properties of the binary asteroid system as well as the bodies’ sub-surface and internal structures. Open questions include the DART impact crater size and shape (or whether the entire asteroid underwent reshaping), as well as the mineralogy, structure, and precise mass of Dimorphos.

The contribution of our team to the Hera mission mainly consists of supporting the mission science team by reconstructing, visualizing, analyzing, and managing in 3D the data acquired with the different scientific vision instruments on board. For this purpose, new tools have been developed by the Austrian team as a software suite called PRo3D-GIS in heritage from the Mars-2020 mission. After successful validation in use during the March 2025 Mars flyby of the Hera spacecraft, the tools will be fully available before the Hera rendezvous with the Didymos asteroid system in late 2026, to bring all relevant instrument data (2D and 3D image and derived data products stemming from various mission phases) into unique spatial context, allow interactive visualizations, annotations and 3D data analysis, and form the base of instrument-spanning scientific data interpretation.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Program. Vol. 57, No. 6, 2025

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-9094

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