24/7 Space News
IRON AND ICE
Hera's mini-radar will probe asteroid's heart
Hera's JuRA mini-radar being enclosed within its packaging at EmTroniX in Luxembourg. JuRA will fly on the Juventas CubeSat aboard ESA's Hera asteroid mission.
Hera's mini-radar will probe asteroid's heart
by Staff Writers
Grenoble, France (SPX) Aug 11, 2023

The smallest radar to fly in space has been delivered to ESA for integration aboard the miniature Juventas CubeSat, part of ESA's Hera mission for planetary defence. The radar will perform the first radar imaging of an asteroid, peering deep beneath the surface of Dimorphos - the Great Pyramid-sized body whose orbit was shifted last year by the impact of NASA's DART spacecraft.

"This delivery marks a definite milestone," comments Alain Herique of Institut de Planetologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG) at the University Grenoble Alpes in France, the instrument's principal investigator.

"We have been working hard in recent weeks to finalise the radar for its handover. But this is far from the end of our involvement. IPAG and our project partners will be following the process of integration, especially in terms of connection with the rest of the CubeSat, to optimise the performance of the finished instrument, and to calibrate its performance to ensure we interpret our science data as best we can once we are in space.

"Looking ahead, we will also be working on our operating procedures, to try out how we will be operating the instrument in practice, including hardware-in-the-loop testing where we will be commanding the radar via Hera and its CubeSat down on the ground."

Scheduled to fly to the Didymos binary asteroid system with ESA's Hera mission for planetary defence in 2024, the compact radar aboard the Juventas CubeSat will perform the first ever radar sounding inside an asteroid. Juventas will peer up to 100 m deep within the 160-m-diameter Dimorphos moonlet of the 780-m-diameter Didymos asteroid.

CubeSats are mini-satellites built up from standardised 10-cm boxes. Juventas is a '6-unit' CubeSat, measuring 10x20x30 cm, while the Juventas radar instrument - JuRa - for short measures 9.5x9.5x9.5 cm across, able to fit within a single CubeSat unit, along with a quartet of 1.5 m-long radar antennas - which will deploy like metal tape measures and have been manufactured by Astronika in Poland.

JuRa's radar electronics are the responsibility of EmTroniX in Luxembourg, a company that initially developed automotive electronics before expanding into designing and producing payloads and avionics for 'New Space' missions.

"It feels good to deliver something to our customer, but it will feel even better once everything is fully integrated and tested," comments Cedric Lorant, EmTroniX co-founder and CEO.

"Once JuRa is integrated with the rest of the Juventas CubeSat, and we perform remaining tweaks such as re-flashing it to the latest firmware, then we will assess how the instrument performs within its working environment."

Planned to perform at least 45 hours of operations during the two-month working life of Juventas, JuRa incorporates some of the latest electronic components, but they had to undergo painstaking radiation testing ahead of delivery to ESA, because the space beyond Earth orbit is riven with charged particles that can degrade electronics.

The JuRa radar design - developed in IPAG in partnership with the Chair for Radio Frequency and Photonics Engineering of Technical University Dresden - is derived from a previous space radar flown on ESA's Rosetta mission, which plumbed the depths of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

IPAG has also worked on radar systems for other space missions including NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and ESA's Juice.

"JuRa is a small, low-frequency, radar for a small body, compared to the bigger instruments we have put together for planetary targets," adds Alain. "As with Rosetta around 67P, we take advantage of the fact we will be orbiting relatively slowly around the Dimorphos asteroid."

Hera will be moving at a few metres per second around the asteroid. This means JuRa can compensate for its comparative lack of power by transmitting the same signal multiple times, boosting its overall signal to noise ratio. The signal is specifically encoded to support the disentangling of radar returns, harnessing an EmTroniX-designed software-defined radio digital signal processor.

The full depth of radar penetration of JuRa's 60 MHz signal will depend on the consistency of Dimorphos. A more homogeneous interior will allow deeper sounding compared to a discontinuous rubble pile structure with big monoliths interspersed with empty voids.

The JuRa team has also been in discussion with ESA and other space agencies about the prospect of flying JuRa units to other asteroids, potentially including targeting the 2029 Earth flyby of the Apophis asteroid.

Related Links
Institut de Planetologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble
Asteroid and Comet Mission News, Science and Technology

Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters
Tweet

RELATED CONTENT
The following news reports may link to other Space Media Network websites.
IRON AND ICE
Winchcombe meteorite is helping us to understand more about asteroids
London, UK (SPX) Aug 09, 2023
One of the UK's most famous meteorites is helping scientists learn more about asteroids millions of kilometres away from Earth. Knowing more about the chemical composition of the Winchcombe meteorite and comparing it to asteroid data could help unravel some of the mysteries of our solar system. Since it crash-landed in the eponymous town in Gloucestershire in 2021, scientists have been attempting to unlock the secrets of the Wincombe meteorite. The rare piece of space rock is now giving us a prist ... read more

IRON AND ICE
Indian lunar lander splits from propulsion module in key step

NASA challenges students to fly Earth and Space experiments

Virgin Galactic rockets its first tourist passengers into space

Embracing the future we need

IRON AND ICE
China's Kuaizhou-1A rocket launches five new satellites

Pulsar Fusion forms partnership with University of Michigan for electric propulsion

China's commercial CERES-1 Y7 rocket launches 7 satellites

Musk says cage fight with Zuckerberg will be in Italy

IRON AND ICE
Delight at Dream Lake

Cracks in ancient Martian mud surprise Curiosity team

A 'Blissful' Martian Rock Paradise, Straight Ahead: Sols 3919-3920

Engineers put a Mars lander legs to the test

IRON AND ICE
China to launch "Innovation X Scientific Flight" program, applications open worldwide

Scientists reveal blueprint of China's lunar water-ice probe mission

Shenzhou 15 crew share memorable moments from Tiangong Station mission

China's Space Station Opens Doors to Global Scientific Community

IRON AND ICE
Intelsat completes C-Band spectrum clearing for 5G Deployment

SpaceX successfully launches another batch of Starlink satellites

Atlas Credit Partners provides $100M strategic financing to AST SpaceMobile

ESA's Space Environment Report 2023

IRON AND ICE
ESA integrates Satellite Orbit Decay Forecast service to enhance satellite safety

SwRI micropatch algorithm improves ground-to-spacecraft software update efficiency

Before the vacuum

De-orbiting PS4 stage in PSLV-C56 Mission

IRON AND ICE
Watch an exoplanet's 17-year journey around its star

Exoplanet surveyor Ariel passes major milestone

The oldest and fastest evolving moss in the world might not survive climate change

Chemical contamination on International Space Station is out of this world

IRON AND ICE
NASA's Europa probe gets a hotline to Earth

All Eyes on the Ice Giants

Hundred-year storms? That's how long they last on Saturn.

Looking for Light with New Horizons

Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us.