OSIRIS-APEX to Inspect 340-Meter Apophis After 2029 Flyby at 32,000 Kilometers
Updated
Updated · spacedaily.com · Aug 6
OSIRIS-APEX to Inspect 340-Meter Apophis After 2029 Flyby at 32,000 Kilometers
3 articles · Updated · spacedaily.com · Aug 6
Summary
NASA’s OSIRIS-APEX will watch Apophis from about 50,000 kilometers during its April 13, 2029 Earth flyby, then begin close post-encounter study in June 2029.
Earth’s gravity is expected to bend the asteroid’s orbit, alter its tumbling spin and possibly shake loose boulders or trigger small landslides, creating a rare before-and-after natural experiment.
Apophis will pass roughly 32,000 kilometers above Earth—inside geostationary altitude but not through the satellite belt—and NASA says it poses no danger to Earth, astronauts or satellites.
The 340-meter asteroid will come within less than one-tenth of the Earth-Moon distance, the closest predicted approach of an asteroid that size, and its solar orbit should shift from Aten to Apollo class.
OSIRIS-APEX, the repurposed OSIRIS-REx spacecraft that returned Bennu samples in 2023, will spend about 18 months mapping Apophis to improve models for how hazardous rubble-pile asteroids respond to deflection forces.