ESA and JAXA have switched on the Ramses asteroid mission for the first time at OHB Italia’s integration site in Milan, bringing the planetary defence spacecraft into full integrated testing. The milestone came as the prime contractor powered up the onboard computer together with key subsystems inside the spacecraft body ahead of the mission to Apophis.
The first integrated switch-on covered the On-Board Computer, Mass Memory Unit, Power Conditioning and Distribution Unit, and several Remote Terminal Units. Engineers were able to send commands through the computer to check the systems working together, moving the project beyond unit-level verification.
Ramses is being developed to observe asteroid Apophis before its close encounter with Earth in 2029. ESA project managers described the spacecraft as coming to life as work at the Milan cleanroom shifts into the next phase of integrated testing.