The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is seeking to collaborate with the European Space Agency (ESA) on its recently announced Ramses mission to track and study the Apophis asteroid that is slated to make a close encounter with the Earth in 2029. ISRO chairman S Somanath said a few weeks ago that India would like to “go and meet the asteroid” when it came close to the Earth. However, he had not clarified whether ISRO was interested in sending its own mission or would collaborate with other space agencies. Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh, in a reply to a question in Parliament on Thursday, said ISRO had already initiated discussions with the ESA to collaborate on the Rapid Apophis Mission for Security and Safety (Ramses) mission. ESA had announced its Ramses mission for the Apophis asteroid just last week. “Discussion for collaboration with ESA (European Space Agency) for Ramses for Apophis flyby monitoring is in progress. Subsequent meetings involving the respective teams of scientists are expected to firm up the specific areas where the organisations can complement each other’s strengths,” Singh informed the Parliament. ESA is the second major space agency, after NASA, to commit a space mission for Apophis that was once considered to be on a pathway to collide with the Earth. Apophis will come within 32,000 km of the Earth in 2029, offering space agencies a rare opportunity to study an asteroid from such close quarters. ESA said an asteroid of such large size comes this close to the Earth only once in about 5,000 to 10,000 years. The Ramses spacecraft would approach the asteroid, which is about 375 m at its widest, before it comes to the closest distance to Earth and then accompany it on its pathway for some time, in a mission similar to the one planned for NASA’s OSIRIX-APEX spacecraft. Asteroids, rocky objects which are mostly the left-overs from the time the Solar System was formed, haven’t been the subject of too many space missions. But this is changing. Hundreds to thousands of asteroids enter the Earth’s atmosphere every day, almost all of them burning out before reaching the surface because of air friction. Once or twice a year, unburnt parts of a few of them even make it to the Earth without causing much damage. But the possibility of a large asteroid colliding with the Earth causing widespread damage, even potentially eliminating all life forms, is not unreal. Such an event is supposed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs 6.5 million years ago. This is the first time that ISRO is planning to study an asteroid, with the intention of developing capabilities in an area in which it hasn’t ventured till now - planetary defence. A mission to study an asteroid is just the first step towards building a planetary defence programme that aims at preventing foreign bodies in space like asteroids or comets from colliding with the Earth, a collision that could destroy all life forms. It is the kind of stuff that has inspired several sci-fi movies and science fiction novels. NASA demonstrated this capability in an actual mission in 2022, getting a spacecraft to collide with an asteroid to change its trajectory, though the asteroid in question, named Dimorphos, did not pose any threat to the Earth at all. Minister Jitendra Singh said that ISRO had already initiated some activities towards building planetary defence capabilities. “ISRO, as part of IS4OM (ISRO System for Safe and Sustainable Space Operations Management) activities, has initiated efforts for capacity building in the area of asteroid observation and planetary defence, the latter aims to protect the planet Earth against any catastrophic asteroid impact threat. Preliminary observational campaigns have been conducted to observe the asteroids using the existing astronomical telescopes within India. Ultimately, dedicated telescopes for asteroid observations, subsequent analysis to determine the asteroid’s path and characterisation of the asteroid’s composition, size, shape etc. for impact risk analysis and advance warning are envisaged as part of these efforts,” he said. “ISRO also looks forward to join IAWN (International Asteroid Warning Network) and SMPAG (Space Mission Planning Advisory Group). These two entities function under the auspices of the United Nation for engaging in scientific research related to the impact potential of an asteroid and to coordinate a global level effort for mitigating any impact hazard, respectively. Through the memberships, ISRO will benefit from the interactions with professionals and have access to the latest technological developments related to asteroid study and impact risk mitigation,” the minister said. Singh said collaborations with other space agencies was also being explored. “In future, ISRO has plans to collaborate with other space agencies like NASA, ESA and JAXA (Japanese space agency) on planetary defence related activities,” he said.
