E10.1 Progresses of JAXA's Planetary Defense Activities

This paper reports on the latest status of JAXA’s planetary defense activities. First, regarding asteroid missions, the Hayabusa2 Extended Mission (Hayabusa2), the extended mission of Hayabusa2, is scheduled to conduct a flyby of the asteroid (98943) Torifune on July 5, 2026. This flyby mission has the important goal of not only planetary science but also planetary defense. From an engineering perspective, the challenge is how accurately we can get spacecraft to approach a small asteroid, and if accurate navigation is possible, it will lead to technology that can crash spacecraft into a small asteroid and change its orbit. It is also important for planetary defense to confirm how well an asteroid can be recognized through a short observation period by the flyby. We report the results of this flyby mission. Additionally, JAXA is collaborating with ESA on the Hera and RAMSES missions. For Hera, JAXA is providing the thermal infrared camera (TIRI). Hera will arrive at the asteroids Didymos-Dimorphos in November 2026. Dimorphos is the asteroid of a collision experiment conducted by the US spacecraft DART, and it will be of great interest to see how it has changed. RAMSES is a mission to explore the asteroid Apophis, which will approach the Earth in 2029, and JAXA will provide the thermal infrared camera (TIRI), solar paddle, and launch. When RAMSES is launched, JAXA’s DESTINY+ probe will also be launched together, and DESTINY+ will first conduct a flyby of Apophis. The DESTINY+ and RAMSES missions to Apophis will provide more extensive data for planetary defense. In addition to missions, JAXA is also involved in observing asteroids that approach the Earth and responding to domestic and international requests. In this presentation, we will report on these progresses.