ESA's Ramses mission to asteroid Apophis

Artist's impression of ESA's Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety (Ramses). 

ESA's Space Safety programme is building its Ramses mission that will rendezvous with the asteroid Apophis and accompany it through its extremely rare flyby of Earth in April 2029. Researchers will study the asteroid as Earth’s gravity alters its physical characteristics. Their findings will improve our ability to defend our planet from any similar object found to be on a collision course in the future.

The Ramses design will be similar to that of ESA's Hera asteroid detective, launching later this year on a mission to the binary asteroid system, Didymos. Like Hera, Ramses will carry two CubeSats passengers that will deploy from the main craft once it has arrived at the asteroid.