Flight Computers for ESA Asteroid Defense and Navigation Missions Pass Key Milestones
Redwire’s Belgium Team Delivers Avionics for Ramses and Genesis
Flight computers built by Redwire for two upcoming European Space Agency missions have cleared critical production milestones, advancing both a planetary defense mission targeting asteroid Apophis and a high-precision Earth navigation satellite toward their launch readiness dates.
Under contracts with OHB Italy, Redwire is developing the onboard computers for ESA’s Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety (RAMSES) and Genesis missions. The computers, described as the electronic “brain” of each spacecraft, will govern spacecraft control, data handling, and communications with Earth.
The systems are part of Redwire’s third-generation Advanced Data and Power Management System (ADPMS-3) avionics suite, developed by the company’s team in Belgium and designed to meet the performance, reliability, and redundancy demands of missions ranging from low Earth orbit to deep space.
Planetary Defense at Apophis
RAMSES is a planetary defense mission that will rendezvous with near-Earth asteroid Apophis ahead of the asteroid’s close approach to Earth. Using a suite of scientific instruments, the spacecraft will conduct a comprehensive before-and-after survey of Apophis, cataloguing its shape, surface, orbit, rotation, and orientation.
The onboard computer will control all vital spacecraft operations — including power, navigation, and Earth communications — and will play a central role in several major mission events, including the deployment and monitoring of two ESA CubeSats and the spacecraft’s rendezvous with the asteroid. The RAMSES onboard computer has completed production and is currently undergoing an environmental test campaign, the final step before delivery.
Measuring Earth to the Millimeter
Genesis is an ESA navigation mission designed to measure Earth with millimeter-level precision. Its primary objective is to improve the accuracy and stability of the International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF), the foundational coordinate system underpinning satellite navigation and Earth science.
The spacecraft will be the first to co-locate four geodetic measurement techniques — satellite navigation, very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI), satellite laser ranging (SLR), and the Doppler Orbitography and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) system — aboard a single satellite. The onboard computer will enable real-time data processing and synchronization, precise timing control, and integration of data from multiple sensors simultaneously.
The Genesis onboard computer has entered production following a successful manufacturing readiness review.
Third-Generation Avionics
Both computers are built on the ADPMS-3 platform, the latest iteration of an avionics architecture Redwire has refined through a series of ESA programs. The company has previously delivered onboard computers for ESA’s Hera asteroid mission, the Comet Interceptor mission, and the Proba-3 formation-flying demonstration satellite.