US company ExLabs announced that its ApophisExL mothership passed a key review ahead of a 2028 launch to rendezvous with asteroid Apophis. The spacecraft will deploy two landers as part of multiple missions studying the asteroid during its close pass by Earth on 13 April 2029. Apophis, 400 metres across, will come within 32,000 kilometres, visible to the naked eye.
Asteroid Apophis, discovered in 2004 and measuring about 400 metres across, once prompted concerns with initial calculations suggesting a 2.7 per cent chance of Earth impact in April 2029. Refined data confirmed no collision risk for at least 100 years, but the asteroid's flyby on 13 April 2029 will bring it just 32,000 kilometres from Earth—closer than geostationary satellites and observable without telescopes, a rare event for an object this size. Missions from the US, Europe, Japan, and China aim to examine it before, during, and after the pass. ExLabs, a private US firm, revealed that its ApophisExL mothership advanced through a critical review phase for a 2028 launch. The vehicle will transport up to 10 payloads, including two landers: one from an unnamed partner and a shoebox-sized model from Japan’s Chiba Institute of Technology. > “The goal is to gain images from the surface of the asteroid,” says Miguel Pascual, ExLabs chief science officer and co-founder. “There’s some really exciting science that can happen.” The Chiba lander deploys from 400 metres above the surface, descending at 10 centimetres per second to touch down after about an hour, capturing images. Deployment occurs up to a week post-flyby to avoid trajectory alterations amplified by Earth's gravity, per Pascual. The European-Japanese Ramses mission plans a pre-flyby landing with a seismometer to detect gravitational-induced landslides and potentially observe other landers. > “Any opportunity to touch and feel the softness or hardness of the surface is great,” says Patrick Michel of Côte d’Azur University, Ramses project scientist. “It is important that we coordinate. The world will be watching. We don’t want to screw up.” No private company has previously landed on an asteroid.
