Europe’s ESA and Japan’s JAXA formalize a planetary defense partnership to work on the Ramses mission, which will rendezvous with asteroid Apophis before its April 2029 flyby, with JAXA supplying components and launching on its H3 rocket while ESA leads design and operations.

The Ramses collaboration emphasizes a strategic international approach to planetary defense, leveraging JAXA’s small-body mission experience and ESA’s mission operations expertise, with shared funding.

ESA leads Ramses in spacecraft design, integration, and operations, while JAXA contributes lightweight solar arrays, an infrared imager, and the H3 launch, continuing ESA-JAXA collaboration history including Hera, EarthCARE, and BepiColombo.

The mission will observe how Earth's gravity shapes Apophis during the flyby, potentially triggering landslides, altering rotation, and stressing interior structure, while mapping surface features before and after the encounter.

Launched in 2028, Ramses aims to rendezvous with Apophis ahead of its early-2029 close Earth pass to study tidal effects, asteroid structure, composition, and behavior.

Public engagement is expected to be extensive, as Apophis will be visible to roughly two billion people, with potential partnerships to broadcast the event and discussions about planetary defense funding and readiness.

Apophis is about 375 meters across and will pass roughly 32,000 kilometers above Earth on April 13, 2029, a record-close approach that enables real-time study of tidal deformation and surface changes.

The 32,000-kilometer flyby distance places the event well inside geostationary orbit, presenting a rare observational opportunity for science and public engagement.

Ramses sits within a broader planetary defense framework including NASA’s DART, ESA’s Hera, and OSIRIS-APEX, to observe planetary-scale gravitational interactions in real time.

Timing is tight: Ramses must launch in a narrow 2028 window to reach Apophis by early 2029, contingent on ministerial funding approvals over the next three years.

Scientific goals include determining whether Apophis is a solid monolith or rubble-pile, with implications for future deflection tactics and documentation of surface and rotation changes during the flyby.

A second CubeSat accompanies the main Ramses spacecraft for closer approaches and enhanced data collection, with OHB Italia as the prime contractor for the main spacecraft.