Detailed model of Hera made with LEGO® bricks by Frans Snik

After a hectic four years of work ESA’s Hera mission for planetary defence was launched into space in October 2024. As a keepsake of the spacecraft they channelled so much effort into, the Hera team also commissioned the building of a detailed model using LEGO® bricks by Frans Snik – as well as smaller variants that you can go ahead and build for yourself!

The team got in touch with Frans Snik, an astronomer at Leiden University in the Netherlands who has the hobby of designing detailed models of astronomical observatories such as the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope and Extremely Large Telescope. He also previously branched out into recreating tiny versions of the space-based James Webb Space Telescope for kids to build at events.

“Frans did us proud with a roughly 1:11 scale model of Hera, plus the twin CubeSats the spacecraft is carrying to the Dimorphos asteroid, using 4448 bricks in all,” explains Hera mission documentalist Mark Brophy. “It was first debuted in public during last October’s ESA Open Day at ESTEC in the Netherlands, just in advance of Hera’s actual launch.

Hera is ESA’s first planetary defence mission, on its way to visit the first asteroid to have had its orbit altered by human action. By gathering close-up data about the Dimorphos asteroid, which was impacted by NASA’s DART spacecraft in 2022, Hera will help turn asteroid deflection into a well understood and potentially repeatable technique.

DISCLAIMER: LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of companies which does not sponsor, authorise or endorse this project.