ESA - Ramses updates

[Blackstar]

https://spacenews.com/ramses-asteroid-mission-on-track-ahead-of-key-funding/

Ramses asteroid mission on track ahead of key funding
by Jeff Foust September 9, 2025   

WASHINGTON — A European-led mission to the asteroid Apophis is on schedule ahead of key funding decisions in the coming months in both Europe and Japan.

The European Space Agency funded preparatory work last year for the Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety, or Ramses, which will go to the asteroid shortly before it makes a very close but safe flyby of Earth in April 2029.

ESA provided about 70 million euros ($82 million) to the project to keep development on schedule even before formally approving and funding the mission. That decision will come at ESA’s ministerial conference in late November in Bremen, Germany.

That early investment has paid off, project officials said at a Sept. 8 briefing during the EPSC-DPS planetary science conference in Helsinki, Finland.

“Up to now, we are fully in line with the planning,” said Paolo Martino, Ramses project manager at ESA. “We are hitting every milestone, so we are fully ready to hopefully support a positive decision two months from now.”

That work includes completing a preliminary design review late last year. A critical design review is scheduled to begin in November. Passing that, he said, would allow the mission to move into spacecraft assembly in 2026, with functional and environmental testing to follow in 2027.

That would set the mission up to launch during a window less than three weeks long in late April through early May 2028. Ramses would arrive at Apophis in February 2029, within two months of the asteroid’s flyby of Earth.

Ramses is leveraging the spacecraft design and experience from Hera, another asteroid mission that launched last year to Didymos, following up on NASA’s DART planetary defense mission. That mission was developed rapidly, with launch coming less than five years after formal approval.

“The Hera mission already set a record in terms of speed, because it was developed in only four years from contract signature to launch,” Martino said. “In this case, we are raising the bar even further.”

The project has not disclosed its estimated total cost or how much funding it needs to secure at the ministerial, where ESA’s 23 member states will set funding levels for programs for the next three years. He said figures could not be disclosed now, citing ongoing work preparing for the ministerial.

However, he suggested the mission should cost somewhat less than Hera, which had a total cost, including launch, of 363 million euros. “Ramses is a faster and cheaper version of Hera,” he said.

Another factor that could reduce the cost of the mission to ESA is collaboration with the Japanese space agency JAXA. The two agencies announced Aug. 27 that JAXA had officially requested funding from the Japanese government to participate on Ramses. That would include providing an infrared imager and solar arrays for the spacecraft as well as its launch on an H3 rocket. ESA and JAXA signed an agreement last November to study potential collaboration on Ramses.

[StraumliBlight]

https://twitter.com/esa/status/1973027871674220709

Today we heard confirmation that the Japanese government has taken a step closer towards formalising their contribution to launch ESA's RAMSES mission. Not only that, but the JAXA-led DESTINY+ explorer mission will launch with it and perform a fast flyby of Apophis before the arrival of RAMSES, helping with the latter's navigation to the asteroid.

JAXA remains one of ESA’s most important long-term strategic partners. As my friend and the President of JAXA Dr. Yamakawa put it: international collaboration is not possible without win-win solutions. And with JAXA: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, it's always a win-win.

DESTINY⁺

The deep space exploration technology demonstrator DESTINY⁺ (Demonstration and Experiment of Space Technology for INterplanetary voYage with Phaethon fLyby and dUst Science) will be launched into Earth's orbit by the Epsilon S rocket with an additional kick stage. It will then be accelerated by ion engines to increase its orbital altitude, and will eventually escape from the Earth by lunar swing-by.

[...]

Mass: 480 kg
Orbital altitude: Initial 230 km x 37000km, Electric propulsion acceleration and lunar swing-by to deep space
Orbital Inclination: Approximately 32 degrees

Friday the 13th of April 2029 will be our lucky day.

Apophis, a 375-metre-wide asteroid, will safely pass Earth at a distance of less than 32 000 kilometres. For a few hours, Apophis will be closer than satellites in geostationary orbit and visible to the naked eye from Europe and Africa.

Space agencies have sent a number of spacecraft to asteroids, but we have never had a mission at an asteroid as it sweeps past a planet. This grand natural experiment offers a unique opportunity to study in real time how an asteroid responds to a strong external force – and the European Space Agency aims to have a front-row seat.

To this end, ESA’s Space Safety Programme has proposed the Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety (Ramses). If approved, Ramses would launch a year ahead of the Apophis flyby, travelling through space to rendezvous with the asteroid months before its encounter with Earth.

Paolo Martino Linkedin (RAMSES Project Manager) [Nov 7]

Today, the integrated RAMSES teams of  European Space Agency - ESA , OHB Italia S.p.A. , OHB SE and GMV have kicked-off the Critical Design Review of the RAMSES mission to asteroid Apophis. The intense technical scrutiny from ESA senior experts will last until January. Lots of work ahead, but being at this stage merely 8 months after PDR conclusion (and fully in line with the ambitous initial planning), is a strong signal in view of the upcoming ministerial decision gate: the pace and committment of the whole RAMSES team is the right one. 🏎️

If the decision-makers will support this ESA Space Safety cornerstone, we are on-track to tackle the Apophis challenge! 🚀🛰️☄️

Look up: ESA and JAXA to launch the Ramses mission to observe Apophis [Dec 24]

ESA will not visit Apophis alone. The Ramses mission is in partnership with JAXA, who will launch the spacecraft onboard the H3 rocket from Tanegashima Space Center, and provide a thermal infrared imager and flexible solar panels. For Fujimoto Masaki, Director General of the JAXA Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Ramses was too important for JAXA not to support.

[...]

The launch of Ramses also supported a second JAXA project, the DESTINY+ mission to observe multiple asteroids during fast flybys that includes the active asteroid Phaethon. DESTINY+ had originally planned to fly on the smaller JAXA Epsilon S rocket, but was postponed after a failed ground test damaged facilities at the Noshiro Rocket Testing Center. With an H3 launch for Ramses, DESTINY+ could join the larger launch and include a flyby of asteroid Apophis before the arrival of Ramses, returning the first space images of the asteroid that will help tighten the Ramses operation plan.

[...]

The design for the Ramses spacecraft is inherited from the Hera mission, but with a smaller antenna and solar panels due to the much closer approach of Apophis compared to asteroid Didymos. Hera had been developed in four years and surprisingly both launched on time and come under budget, factors that leveraged further support as Ramses must be finished in a similar time frame.

“Apophis doesn’t wait!” exclaims Michel. “And we couldn’t start to plan earlier because Hera first needed to launch so that we could prove that we could do it!”

JAXA is also a collaborator on Hera, providing the thermal infrared imager that will next fly on Ramses. In fact, the two agencies have been in close contact since ESA first considered the Don Quijote mission due to the JAXA expertise in asteroid exploration with Hayabusa and later Hayabusa2. With the creation of the ESA Space Safety Program that combines the fast development timeline of the technology-focussed missions with scientific objectives, the partnership between ESA and JAXA has deepened as the program mirrors the design of the ISAS small body program.

[bolun]

ESA Member States commit to largest contributions at Ministerial

The Ramses mission, to be built on a tight schedule to intercept the asteroid Apophis on its close encounter with Earth in 2029 is funded, and will help to prepare for future potentially hazardous asteroids