What is "hera"

sister and wife of Zeus, from Greek Hera, literally "protectress," related to heros "hero," originally "defender, protector."

Hera (, , Greek , Hērā, equivalently , Hērē, in Ionic and Homer) is the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of Greek mythology and religion. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. Her counterpart in the religion of ancient Rome was Juno. The cow, lion and the peacock were considered sacred to her. Hera's mother is Rhea and her father Cronus.

Portrayed as majestic and solemn, often enthroned, and crowned with the polos (a high cylindrical crown worn by several of the Great Goddesses), Hera may bear a pomegranate in her hand, emblem of fertile blood and death and a substitute for the narcotic capsule of the opium poppy. Scholar of Greek mythology Walter Burkert writes in Greek Religion, "Nevertheless, there are memories of an earlier aniconic representation, as a pillar in Argos and as a plank in Samos."

Hera was known for her jealous and vengeful nature against Zeus' lovers and offspring, but also against mortals who crossed her, such as Pelias. Paris also earned Hera's hatred by choosing Aphrodite as the most beautiful goddess.

Hera is a target missile for development testing of missile defense systems such as Terminal High Altitude Area Defense and Patriot PAC-3. In 1992, the United States Army Space and Missile Defense Command awarded the Theater Missile Defense (TMD) Targets contract to Coleman Aerospace with Space Vector and Aerotherm as sub-contractors. Coleman developed Hera using the second and third stages of the Minuteman II and the guidance section of the Pershing II. The Rocket Systems Launch Program at Detachment 12, USAF Space and Missile Systems Center, provided technical program management services involved with removing the liquid injection thrust vector control system from the retired MMII second stages in favor of a flex-seal system enabling robust flight control from launch to burn out. First launch was on April 24, 1995 at White Sands Missile Range.

Because of its range, Russia claims Hera qualifies as an IRBM and hence violates Item 1, Article 6 of the INF Treaty.

Hera is also used in the USAF Sounding Rocket Program.

There were twelve tests using the Hera missile system launched from Fort Wingate over the Datil Mountains to White Sands Missile Range between 1997 and 2004. In March 2009, the tests were resumed with a thirteenth flight over the Datil Mountains. Other tests using the HERA were conducted entirely within the missile range, such as the aborted 13 September 2006 test of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.

During THAAD flight test FTT-11 on December 11, 2009, the Hera target missile failed to ignite following its airborne deployment, subsequently crashing into the ocean. In the wake of this incident, Missile Defense Agency Director LTG Patrick O'Reilly sharply criticized L-3 Coleman Aerospace quality control practices, and in March 2010 suspended further Hera purchases. The suspension was lifted on May 9, 2011 when the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center and the Missile Defense Agency were satisfied that Coleman had completed the necessary corrective actions.

On October 30, 2013, the Pentagon announced that L3-Coleman had won a $74 million contract to continue to develop and supply medium-range ballistic missile targets to the Missile Defense Agency, beating out three competing bidders including Orbital Sciences Corporation and Lockheed Martin Space Systems.

Hera is the name of a character in the reimagined TV series of Battlestar Galactica.

Hera is a fictional deity appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is based on the Greek Goddess of the same name. Hera first appeared in the pages of Thor #129, written by Stan Lee and drawn by Jack Kirby.

The Hera was a 4 mast 280 ft long steel barque, that foundered in rough weather on 30 January 1914.

The wreck is now a popular site with scuba divers, at a maximum depth of around 18m it is suitable for levels from Open Water and up. It was launched in 1886 in Geestemünde.

Hera may refer to:

• Hera, a Greek Goddess
• 103 Hera, an asteroid
• 1 Ceres, briefly bore the name Hera
• Hera (moon), an informal name borne by Jupiter VII (now Elara) from 1955 to 1975
• Hera, Iran, a village in Hormozgan Province, Iran
• HERA, a particle accelerator
• Hera missile
• HERA (job evaluation), the Higher Education Role Analysis methodology adopted by the majority of UK universities.
• Hera Agathon, a character in the 2004 re-imagined version of Battlestar Galactica
• Hera (Marvel Comics), a Marvel Comics character
• Hera, the superhero codename of Pepper Potts
• Hera, full name Hera Hjartardóttir, an Icelandic/New Zealand singer-songwriter
• Hera Björk (born 1972), Icelandic singer
• the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008
• Hera, the Zimbabwean musical instrument also known as matepe
• Hera Group, a multiutility company located in Italy
• Hera Gallery, artist cooperative in Rhode Island, USA
• Mac OS X Server 1.0, codename of Mac OS X Server 1.0
• Winter Storm Hera (January 2016; U.S. and Canada)