HERA autonomous Guidance, Navigation and Control experiments: enabling better asteroid science future missions

Abstract

HERA is a mission of opportunity to validate kinetic impact as planetary defense technique in collaboration with NASA\'s DART mission. As a by-product, asteroid science will be achieved using the needed for deflection. In addition, HERA will demonstrate several Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) technologies. These GNC experiments permits the achievement of some deflection and science goals of HERA mission and enable the use of the GNC technologies in future space missions. The design of the GNC experiments considers the balance between mission safety, flight operations, payload characteristics, and spacecraft and schedule constraints.