Italy at the helm toward Apophis. Ohb and Tyvak with Esa for planetary defense

The two companies, national excellences, have signed contracts with the European Space Agency to build the probe and one of the two CubeSats that will intercept the asteroid.

BY EMILIO COZZI

Italy is leading one of the most anticipated space missions of the near future: Ramses, which in 2029 will send a probe from the European Space Agency (Esa) toward the asteroid Apophis as it approaches Earth without posing any threat. This will be a unique opportunity to study an object during an astronomical conjunction that brings it astronomically close to our planet.

Immediately after successfully completing the critical design review on February 10, Esa signed new contracts with two Italian excellence companies, OHB Italia and Tyvak International, to build the probe and its cubesats. Launch is scheduled for spring 2028, and Ramses will reach Apophis before its close approach.

Ohb in charge of the probe

Ohb Italia will be the prime contractor for the Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety (Ramses). The contract, valued at €81.2 million, follows a 2024 agreement worth €63 million, also with Ohb Italia, for project development. The total European commitment, including collaboration with Jaxa, the Japanese space agency, is approximately €150 million. The spacecraft is a two-meter cube with a launch mass of about 1,250 kilograms, of which around 650 kilograms is propellant.

Ramses will approach to approximately one kilometer and will monitor in real time the changes of Apophis during the flyby, providing a unique view before and after and improving scientific understanding of asteroid dynamics, writes Ohb Italia on its website. Operations will be conducted with optical and spectroscopic cameras to analyze the surface and chemical composition, together with a plasma spectrometer to study interactions between the solar wind and Apophis’s surface. The objective is to investigate the asteroid’s interaction with Earth’s gravitational pull.

Tyvak, the Made-in-Italy cubesat and the legacy of Hera

The Ramses probe will not be alone. It will carry two cubesats, one of which is Made in Italy. It will be built by the Turin-based Tyvak International, another excellence in the field, with which Esa signed a second contract worth €8.2 million for the production of the small satellite Farinella, in honor of the Italian planetary scientist Paolo Farinella. This agreement follows an earlier contract worth €4.7 million for preparatory work.

This is not a coincidence. The complexity and specificity of the mission require solid experience and know-how. The companies involved are proof of this. Tyvak also built the Milani cubesat for ESA’s first planetary defense mission, Hera, launched in 2023 and now on its way to the binary asteroid system Didymos, where it is expected to arrive by the end of this year.

OHB System was the prime contractor for Hera, with a fundamental role played by OHB Italia. The company that will build the second cubesat is the Spanish company Emxys, which also produced the Juventas cubesat for Hera. In both missions, the Iberian cubesats will attempt not only remote observation but also a landing on the surface.

With the necessary differences, this recalls another celebrated European mission, carried out by the Giotto probe in 1986 toward Halley’s Comet. Giotto was exceptional for several reasons. It was ESA’s first deep space mission. Exactly 40 years ago it encountered what remains the most famous comet, painted by Giotto in the Nativity. It took advantage of a rare opportunity that occurs once every 76 years, photographed a comet nucleus for the first time from only 1,300 kilometers away, and then passed within 600 kilometers of its surface.

The Apophis encounter will also be significant. Firstly, it will be a close approach to a sizeable object, an event that Esa estimates may occur only once every 7,000 years. Discovered in 2004, Apophis held scientists in suspense for several weeks because trajectory calculations showed a 2.7 percent probability that it could hit Earth during the 2029 close approach. Although this probability seemed small, the potential catastrophic consequences made the concern legitimate. Subsequent observations confirmed that Apophis will not hit us, passing at 32,000 kilometers from Earth, closer than geostationary satellites and less than one tenth the distance to the Moon.

An asteroid in the keyhole

At approximately 400 meters in diameter, Apophis would not have a devastating effect like the asteroid that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, which was at least ten kilometers wide. However, if it struck a city or densely populated region, it would cause significant damage and casualties. According to research institutes and space agencies, asteroids of Apophis’s size are among those most likely to pose a threat because they are small, dim, and hard to detect with telescopes.

This is especially true for asteroids that travel, entirely or partially, within Earth’s orbit, where the Sun can obscure observation from the ground. Studying Apophis up close is therefore a scientific imperative, allowing better understanding of similar objects and helping develop defense systems and procedures.

Another factor to consider is the gravitational effect. During its close approach, Earth’s gravity could alter Apophis’s trajectory, which may affect predictions of future impacts. If Apophis were to pass through a precise and narrow region of space near Earth, known as the gravitational keyhole, the effect could theoretically result in an impact in 2068, improbable but not impossible according to Esa.

This is another reason why Ramses is one of the most important upcoming missions.