The European Space Agency (ESA) is awarding a $153 million contract to an industry consortium led by German space company OHB. “The contract covers the ‘detailed design, manufacturing and testing’ of a mission codenamed ‘Hera,’ after the Greek goddess of marriage and the hearth, which will support NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirect Test mission and help provide a path towards future planetary…
Tag: Didymos
When the sky exploded: Remembering Tunguska
On June 30, 1908, the largest asteroid impact in recorded history occurred in remote Siberia, Russia. We now celebrate Asteroid Day each year on the anniversary the Tunguska event, as it is now known. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/what-is-the-tunguska-explosion…
Asteroid Day, June 30, live from Luxembourg
The 6th annual Asteroid Day will be held as a digital event on June 30, 2020. It’ll feature presentations with experts, panel discussions, and question-and-answer periods. Here’s how to participate. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/international-asteroid-day-june-30…
NASA’s first planetary defense mission target gets a new name
Nearly two decades ago, a near-Earth asteroid was discovered to have a moon and the binary system was given the name “Didymos”—Greek for “twin,” a loose description of the larger main body and the smaller orbiting moon, which became unofficially known as Didymos B. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-06-nasa-planetary-defense-mission.html…