BUSAN, South Korea — The European Space Agency will allow a proposed mission to the asteroid Apophis to proceed to a next stage of development to keep it on schedule even though it is not yet fully funded.
ESA announced July 16 that its space safety program, which includes planetary defense, has given the Ramses mission permission to begin preparatory work for the mission, which is designed to visit Apophis before that asteroid makes a very close flyby of Earth in April 2029.
Ramses, or Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety, would use the same spacecraft bus as ESA’s Hera mission, scheduled to launch this October to visit the asteroid Didymos, whose moon Dimorphos was the target of NASA’s DART mission to deflect its orbit. Ramses will carry two cubesats for additional studies of the asteroid.
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