ESA’s Hera Mission Captures Historic Images of Mars and Deimos During Flyby

The spacecraft used its instruments for the first time beyond Earth-Moon space while gaining a gravity assist toward its asteroid targets.

The European Space Agency's Hera spacecraft conducted a gravity-assist flyby of Mars on March 12, 2025, imaging the red planet and its smaller moon, Deimos.
Hera captured detailed images of Deimos, including its lesser-seen far side, using instruments such as the Asteroid Framing Camera, Hyperscout H, and the Thermal Infrared Imager.
The mission aims to study the Didymos binary asteroid system, including Dimorphos, whose orbit was altered by NASA's DART mission in 2022.
This maneuver shortened Hera’s journey to the Didymos system, saving fuel and advancing planetary defense research to assess asteroid deflection techniques.
The data will also aid planning for JAXA's upcoming Martian Moon eXploration Mission, set to study both Martian moons and return a sample from Phobos.