science

Ramses (spacecraft)

Ramses (spacecraft) is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Ramses (spacecraft) rather than just read about it. In short: Ramses (Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety) is a future European-Japanese planetary defense mission to the near-Earth asteroid (99942) Apophis, led by the European Space Agency (ESA). It is expected to be launched between mid April and mid May 2028 and to arrive at Apophis in February 2029 before its closest approach to Earth.

Key takeaways

Ramses (spacecraft) belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Ramses (spacecraft) to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Ramses (spacecraft) from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Ramses (Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety) is a future European-Japanese planetary defense mission to the near-Earth asteroid (99942) Apophis, led by the European Space Agency (ESA). It is expected to be launched between mid April and mid May 2028 and to arrive at Apophis in February 2029 before its closest approach to Earth. It will conduct measurements of the asteroid's properties before and during the Earth flyby to study its response to the close encounter with the planet. At the asteroid, Ramses will deploy two smaller CubeSats. Ramses will leverage much of the technology developed for the Hera mission.

Timeline

Preparations In July 2024, ESA's Space Safety Programme has received permission to begin preparatory work for Ramses. The project has been awarded 1.5 million euros for the preparations and in October 2024, ESA signed a contract with OHB Italia SpA for preliminary work on the mission. ESA also unveiled the official mission patch. In July 2024, India expressed interest on developing an instrument for Ramses. In 2024, DLR proposed including a mini-rover in the Ramses mission: MASCOT3 (or BASTET), similar to the MASCOT rover which flew on Hayabusa2. In March 2025, ESA has selected the first of two CubeSats (later named Farinella) to fly onboard Ramses. The mission team revealed that they were considering whether the second CubeSat could be a lander that would touch down on Apophis. In April 2025, ESA has selected the Spanish company Emxys to build the second CubeSat (later named Don Quijote), indeed intended to land on Apophis, and GomSpace (Denmark) to provide system engineering support for the lander CubeSat project. In August 2025, JAXA has made an official funding request to the Government of Japan to participate in the mission. JAXA plans to contribute the probe's solar arrays, infrared imager, and a rideshare launch on the H3 rocket. On the European side, the funding decision was expected to be made in late 2025 at the ESA ministerial council. Speaking at EPSC-DPS meeting in September 2025, Ramses Project Manager Paolo Martino confirmed that the project was fully on schedule. The Preliminary Design Review had been completed previous year, and the Critical Design Review was expected in November 2025. At the ministerial council in late November 2025, ESA member states approved funding for the mission, together with a substantial increase in the budget of the Space Safety Programme.

Development In December 2025, OHB Italia signed an agreement with the Belgian company SPACEBEL, already involved in Hera, which will provide the core onboard software for Ramses. On 6 February 2026, Ramses concluded its Critical Design Review. On 10 February 2026 at ESTEC, ESA signed a contract worth €81.2 million with OHB Italia to begin the construction, assembly, and testing phase of the mission. ESA also signed a contract worth €8.2 million with Tyvak International for the construction of the orbiter CubeSat Farinella. On 12 February, OHB Italia signed a contract with the Czech company G.L.Electronic, that will supply electrical cables and related hardware for Ramses. G.L.Electronic also contributed to the Hera mission. In May 2026 ESA and JAXA signed a cooperation agreement detailing the Japanese contribution to the Ramses mission. The two agencies also signed a more general memorandum of cooperation on planetary defence. In June 2026, the central tube of Ramses was completed in Bremen. In early July 2026, ESA signed a contract with the Spanish company EMXYS to provide the Don Quijote lander CubeSat.

Mission profile Ramses will launch on a Japanese H3 rocket from Tanegashima Space Center in April 2028 together with another asteroid probe, the JAXA's DESTINY+ whose mission is to explore the active asteroid Phaethon. This will allow DESTINY+ to perform a flyby of Apophis before Ramses, taking the first space images of the asteroid in preparation of the arrival of Ramses.

Ramses will fly on a 10-months direct transfer trajectory and rendezvous with Apophis no later than 1 March 2029. Both before and after the closest approach to Earth, Ramses will perform global imaging of the asteroid's surface at 10 cm resolution and targeted imaging of selected areas at 1.5 cm resolution. During the Earth flyby, Ramses will keep a safe distance of 5 km from the asteroid while performing observations with high temporal resolution of 1 picture per minute.

Spacecraft The Ramses spacecraft design is mostly based on Hera. However, the different mission profile of Ramses led to various design changes, e.g. smaller solar arrays and antennas due to closer distance to Sun and Earth during critical operations, as well as changes to tank volume and dry mass due to an increased delta-V demand. The spacecraft's solar arrays will be provided by JAXA. The spacecraft's central tube, made of carbon fibre reinforced polymer, measures 1.55 m in height and weighs just under 40 kg.

CubeSats

Farinella The first selected CubeSat, named Farinella after the Italian planetary scientist Paolo Farinella, will be built by Tyvak International (Italy), a company that developed the Milani CubeSat for the Hera mission. The small spacecraft will combine the dust analyser of Milani with the low-frequency radar of Juventas, another CubeSat of Hera. The dust analyser, called VISTA, will study material released from the surface of Apophis and the radar will investigate the asteroid's internal structure.

Don Quijote The second selected CubeSat, Don Quijote (not to be confused with Don Quijote, an undeveloped concept for asteroid mission), being developed by a consortium led by Emxys (Spain), will attempt landing on Apophis. Its main task will be to provide high resolution imagery of the asteroid's surface from a distance of just a few kilometres. If the landing is successful, Don Quijote will also measure the asteroid's seismic activity and magnetic interactions during its exceptionally close flyby of Earth. Emxys previously contributed to the GRASS gravimeter on Hera's Juventas CubeSat.

Science instruments The Ramses spacecraft itself will be equipped with eight scientific instruments including two Asteroid Framing Cameras and a Radio Science experiment as in Hera, while other will be mounted on the two accompanying CubeSats, Farinella and Don Quijote.

Instruments on Ramses

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ramses (spacecraft)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ramses (spacecraft) claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Ramses (spacecraft) before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Ramses (spacecraft) ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Ramses (spacecraft)

In research: Ramses (spacecraft) appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Ramses (spacecraft) in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Ramses (spacecraft) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2028 in spaceflight, Future spaceflights, Missions to asteroids, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ramses (spacecraft) outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Ramses (spacecraft) in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Ramses (spacecraft) means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Ramses (spacecraft) out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Ramses (spacecraft) in simple terms?

Why does Ramses (spacecraft) matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Ramses (spacecraft)?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Ramses (spacecraft).