GomSpace worked on the Juventas CubeSat designed for radar imaging of the Didymos asteroid system.
Henon is the first CubeSat that will fly independently without a parent spacecraft, unlike Juventas and Milani which will communicate with the larger Hera spacecraft.
The contract for advanced operational support for Juventas runs until the second quarter of 2027.
GomSpace's HOOP product supports the implementation of the ground segment for the HERA's Juventas mission.
The HERA-Juventas satellite and the Milani companion vehicle will begin surveying the Didymos-Dimorphos asteroid system from January to May 2027.
The HERA spacecraft with Juventas on board launched on Monday 2024-10-07.
GomSpace signed a contract change notice with the European Space Agency for 325,000€ (3.8 MSEK) to support additional project activities for the Juventas mission.
Juventas is a cubesat flying with Hera, equipped with a radar designed to map the interior of Dimorphos.
The Juventas nanosatellite was partly developed in Luxembourg by GomSpace and is currently in testing to be part of the HERA mission programmed for October 2024.
Luxembourg’s GomSpace oversaw the Juventas CubeSat for ESA and performed spacecraft integration at GomSpace’s head office in Denmark.
The HERA-Juventas satellite will launch as part of the HERA mission in October 2024.
Hera will carry two smallsats named Juventas and Milani, which are Europe’s first deep-space CubeSats.
Juventas and Milani will gather data on the asteroid Dimorphos and test new intersatellite link technology.
The 1,500,000-euro amount in the Contract Change Notice is provided to GomSpace to perform system-level adaptations to increase Juventas mission robustness.
GomSpace plans to build the Juventas cubesat in Luxembourg, which will scan the interior of Dimorphos using a low-frequency radar.
Juventas will be part of ESA's HERA mission to a binary asteroid system, the first of its kind in Europe.
Juventas will finalize its mission with a landing that uses the dynamics of likely bouncing impact events to capture details of the asteroid's surface material properties.
Juventas will perform satellite-to-satellite radio-science experiments and carry out a low-frequency radar survey of the asteroid interior in collaboration with HERA.
In close orbit around Didymoon, Juventas will measure the gravity field and the internal structure of the asteroid.
GomSpace is the project prime responsible for delivering the Juventas spacecraft and mission design.