New Delhi: On 7 May, President of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Yamakawa Hiroshi and Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA),
Josef Aschbacher signed a Memorandum of Cooperation in the field of planetary defence at the Embassy of Italy in Berlin. At the same time, JAXA and ESA signed a cooperation agreement for the RAMSES (Rapid Apophis Mission for SpacE Safety) mission, which targets the near Earth Asteroid Apophis after its close approach in April 2029. Planetary defence is an international effort to protect the Earth by detecting, characterising and tracking near-Earth asteroids to assess their potential impact risks.
Planetary defence also involves developing and implementing measures to avoid or mitigate possible consequences if and when a credible threat is identified. No large asteroid is expected to impact the Earth for centuries into the future. Activities addressing asteroid impact hazards intensified in the 1990s, and has evolved into a global initiative. Since the early 2000s, the United Nations has played a central role in coordinating global efforts towards planetary defence. In 2024, ESA and JAXA signed an agreement to explore avenues for future cooperation, with the new MoU and agreement further strengthening the cooperation between the two space agencies in planetary defence.
The RAMSES mission
ESA is on track to launch the RAMSES mission in 2008, that will observe Apophis following the close approach in 2029. JAXA will be providing the Solar Array Wing and Thermal Infrared Imager for the RAMSES spacecraft, as well as the H3 launch vehicle to deploy the mission. The observations will be complementary to those captured by NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Apophis Explorer (OSIRIS-APEX mission) which was threatened by Trump’s Skinny Budget, but was rescued by the US Congress. OSIRIS, like RAMSES will rendezvous with Apophis only after the close encounter with Earth.
