This week the launch services contract was signed for the Heliospheric Pioneer for Solar and Interplanetary Threats Defence (Henon) mission, ESA’s first stand-alone deep-space CubeSat, confirming that the pioneering spacecraft will fly onboard Ariane 6, alongside ESA’s Plato mission.
The agreement marks a milestone for the tiny technology demonstration mission, which is being developed through ESA’s General Support Technology Programme (GSTP) with Argotec, Italy, as the prime contractor. With arrangements now in place, the team can focus on spacecraft integration and testing before launch in early 2027.
“Everything has now been agreed and we can confirm that Henon will launch with Plato. It unlocks the next phase of our preparations and allows us to move forward with high motivation,” explains Roger Walker, Head of CubeSat missions at ESA.
“We are delighted by this milestone toward securing in-orbit operations services for Henon, marking a significant contribution to the mission's operational readiness and overall success,” said Davide Monferrini, program manager at Argotec.
The spacecraft may be small, but its ambitions are not. Henon will become the first CubeSat ever to independently venture into deep space, communicate directly with Earth and manoeuvre to its final destination without relying on a larger ‘parent’ spacecraft.
“This is a new class of spacecraft,” explains Roger. “If you think about it, it’s a spacecraft roughly the size of a mini fridge heading out into deep space on its own. Not a large mission like Rosetta or BepiColombo but a tiny explorer proving what future low-cost interplanetary missions will be capable of.”
Once in its operational orbit, it will monitor solar activity from a new vantage point, to demonstrate the provision of warnings of solar storms hours before they reach Earth, helping to protect critical infrastructure and future space missions.
This joint technology solution delivers advanced Space Situational Awareness capabilities, enabling civil, commercial, and governmental users to anticipate potential threats, reduce operational risks, and ensure the continuity, resilience and security of essential services and missions.
Now the launch contract is in place preparations for the brave little pioneer’s great adventure continue “Now we are preparing for spacecraft integration, with flight hardware arriving and work progressing as planned.”
The structural and thermal qualification testing and FlatSat functional test campaigns have successfully reduced mission risks, while the first flight hardware is arriving for spacecraft integration activities planned during the summer.
Henon isn't just demonstrating propulsion and communications technology but it's also helping prove a future operational model for launching small deep-space spacecraft. Launching with Plato will give Henon access to the deep-space injection it needs without requiring a dedicated launcher, but a feasibility study had to be undertaken with ArianeSpace to confirm whether or not it was possible to safely accommodate CubeSats onboard Ariane 6 as secondary passengers.
“Henon was a reference case, but we also looked at how many CubeSats could be accommodated in this launch architecture. We can fit up to four 16U CubeSats in fact."
“A future constellation, four space weather satellites for example, would be taken care of with that launch solution," Roger continues.
“Henon is the first of its kind. If we can prove that a CubeSat can travel independently into deep space and operate there successfully by performing significant manoeuvres, then we open the door to future constellations or swarms in deep space, asteroid rendezvous missions and new forms of exploration that simply aren't possible today,” he concludes.
Henon is funded through the Italian Space Agency’s ALCOR programme, along with contributions from the United Kingdom and Finland and the Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali as scientific principal investigator. HENON’s team also includes the Aboa Space Research Oy, the University of Turku, Imperial College London, the Charles University, SpaceDys, IMT, the University of Calabria, and the University of Florence.
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