First Results from Thermal Infra-Red Imager (TIRI) during Hera’s Mars Swing-By

The European Space Agency’s Hera mission aims to study the Didymos binary asteroid system  following NASA’s DART impact experiment. As part of its journey, Hera will perform  a swingby of Mars in March 2025 as a way of gathering extra momentum. Mars swing-by provides an opportunity to test and calibrate its onboard instruments, including the Thermal Infra-Red Imager (TIRI). TIRI is designed to map the planetary surfaces in mid-infrared to reveal  temperature as well as physical properties such as roughness, particle size distribution and porosity that can be deduced. Moreover, TIRI can also provide important observations regarding the Mars atmospheric science as its spectral range covers ice clouds and dust emissivity peaks.

The spacecraft will fly through the orbits of both Martian moons Deimos and Phobos, and perform science observations of the former body and the planet's surface and atmosphere  in synergy with the other HERA instruments.  Here, we will present the first results from TIRI captured during  the Mars swing-by, of the Martian Moons and Mars  surface and atmosphere under varying illumination conditions as well as the calibrations.  TIRI was provided by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, inherited from the  TIR instrument onboard the Hayabusa2  with contributions from  Royal Observatory of Belgium and VITO  and the support of   The Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO).