Operation Hearth

Scientific achievement

Operation Hearth was an ambitious space exploration initiative conceived and operated by Minerva with the goal of establishing a human presence on the asteroid 4 Vesta, a large metallic asteroid in the Sol asteroid belt. Hearth was part of a much broader, longer-term vision: the creation of a complex network of human settlements in the Belt in order to utilize its resources. Launched in late 2035, the Hearth fleet arrived at Vesta at the end of the following year and began to set up the self-contained habitat later christened Hestia Base. With this successful and monumental achievement under their belt, the Interorbital Operations Division began to plan an even more formidable feat: transferring their asteroid mining program's base of operations from Vesta to the dwarf planet Ceres later in the century.