The HERD (High Energy cosmic-Radiation Detector) experiment is a future space based experiment for the direct detection of high energy cosmic rays. It will be installed on the Chinese space station in 2027. The detector is based on a homogeneous, isotropic, deep and 3D segmented calorimeter, surrounded by multiple sub-detectors for charge, timing and track measurement. Thanks to its innovative geometry, the detector will be capable to detect particles from all directions having a large geometric acceptance. Together with a good energy resolution, this will provide the detector an effective geometric factor about one order of magnitude larger than that of current space experiments for protons and electrons detection. Thanks to this feature, the
HERD experiment will measure cosmic ray proton flux up to 1 PeV, performing the first direct measurement of the cosmic ray knee region. In addition HERD will measure electron+positron flux up to tens of TeV, and will search for possible indirect signals of dark matter and local sources of electrons and positrons. These energy limits, for protons and electrons, will be more than one order of magnitude higher than that of the current space experiments. Moreover, measuring high energy photons, HERD will search for sources of high energy cosmic rays and for indirect signals of dark matter.