Ramses, or Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety, is a proposed ESA mission to a near-Earth asteroid 99942 Apophis. If approved, it is expected to be launched in April 2028, to arrive at Apophis in February 2029, before its closest approach to Earth. It will conduct multiple measurements of the asteroid's properties, to study possible response in case such an asteroid would be on a collision course with Earth. [1] [2] [3] [ clarification needed ]
ESA signed a contract with OHB Italia SpA for preliminary work on the mission in October 2024. A funding decision is expected to be made in late 2025. Ramses will be "an adaptation of Hera ", launched in 2024. [4] [5]
A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body orbiting the Sun whose closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) is less than 1.3 times the Earth–Sun distance. This definition applies to the object's orbit around the Sun, rather than its current position, thus an object with such an orbit is considered an NEO even at times when it is far from making a close approach of Earth. If an NEO's orbit crosses the Earth's orbit, and the object is larger than 140 meters (460 ft) across, it is considered a potentially hazardous object (PHO). Most known PHOs and NEOs are asteroids, but about 0.35% are comets.
The Yarkovsky effect is a force acting on a rotating body in space caused by the anisotropic emission of thermal photons, which carry momentum. It is usually considered in relation to meteoroids or small asteroids, as its influence is most significant for these bodies.
2029 (MMXXIX) will be a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2029th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 29th year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the 10th and last year of the 2020s decade.
Ramesses or Ramses may refer to:
The B612 Foundation is a private nonprofit foundation headquartered in Mill Valley, California, United States, dedicated to planetary science and planetary defense against asteroids and other near-Earth object (NEO) impacts. It is led mainly by scientists, former astronauts and engineers from the Institute for Advanced Study, Southwest Research Institute, Stanford University, NASA and the space industry.
(433953) 1997 XR2 is a sub-kilometer sized asteroid, classified as near-Earth object and potentially hazardous asteroid of the Apollo group. It was discovered on 4 December 1997, by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) program at Lincoln Laboratory's Experimental Test Site near Socorro, New Mexico, in the United States.
David James Tholen is an American astronomer at the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Hawaiʻi. He holds a 1984 PhD from the University of Arizona, and specializes in planetary and Solar System astronomy. He is a discoverer of minor planets and known for the Tholen spectral classification scheme used on asteroids.
99942 Apophis (provisional designation 2004 MN4) is a near-Earth asteroid and a potentially hazardous object, 450 metres (1,480 ft) by 170 metres (560 ft) in size, that caused a brief period of concern in December 2004 when initial observations indicated a probability of 2.7% that it would hit Earth on Friday, 13 April 2029. Additional observations provided improved predictions that eliminated the possibility of an impact on Earth in 2029. A small possibility nevertheless remained that, during its 2029 close encounter with Earth, Apophis would pass through a gravitational keyhole estimated to be 800 metres in diameter, which would have set up a future impact exactly seven years later on Easter Sunday, April 13, 2036. This possibility kept it at Level 1 on the Torino impact hazard scale until August 2006, when the probability that Apophis would pass through the keyhole was determined to be very small and Apophis's rating on the Torino scale was lowered to zero. By 2008, the keyhole had been determined to be less than 1 km wide. During the short time when it had been of greatest concern, Apophis set the record for highest rating ever on the Torino scale, reaching level 4 on December 27, 2004.
Don Quijote is a past space mission concept that has been studied from 2005 until 2007 by the European Space Agency, and which would investigate the effects of crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid to test whether a spacecraft could successfully deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. The orbiter was designed to last for seven years. The mission did not proceed beyond initial studies.
OSIRIS-REx was a NASA asteroid-study and sample-return mission that visited and collected samples from 101955 Bennu, a carbonaceous near-Earth asteroid. The material, returned in September 2023, is expected to enable scientists to learn more about the formation and evolution of the Solar System, its initial stages of planet formation, and the source of organic compounds that led to the formation of life on Earth. Following the completion of the primary OSIRIS-REx mission, the spacecraft is planned to conduct a flyby of asteroid 99942 Apophis, now as OSIRIS-APEX.
LuxSpace is a European space systems contractor based in Betzdorf in Luxembourg. It was founded in November 2004 as a daughter company of OHB AG, and began operations in January 2005.
The Lunar Gateway, or simply Gateway, is a space station which is planned to be assembled in orbit around the Moon. The Gateway is intended to serve as a communication hub, science laboratory, and habitation module for astronauts as part of the Artemis program. It is a multinational collaborative project: participants include NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC). The Gateway is planned to be the first space station beyond low Earth orbit.
Hera is a spacecraft developed by the European Space Agency for its space safety program. Its primary mission objective is to study the Didymos binary asteroid system that was impacted four years earlier by the NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft and contribute to validation of the kinetic impact method to deviate a near-Earth asteroid from a colliding trajectory with Earth. It will measure the size and morphology of the crater created as well as the momentum transferred by an artificial projectile impacting an asteroid, which will allow measuring the efficiency of the deflection produced by the impact. It will also analyze the expanding debris cloud caused by the impact.
This article documents expected notable spaceflight events during the year 2028.