ExLabs and ChibaTech Partner for Student CubeLanders to Asteroid Apophis

by Simon Mansfield Sydney, Australia (SPX) Jan 21, 2026 ExLabs has partnered with Japan's Chiba Institute of Technology and its Planetary Exploration Research Center to deliver university-led payloads to the surface of asteroid Apophis during its close approach to Earth in 2029. The ApophisExL mission is described as the world's first commercial deep-space rideshare and is supported through mission design and operations collaboration with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory operated by Caltech. Under the leadership of planetary scientist and PERC Director, Dr. Tomoko Arai, ChibaTech students and researchers are developing two landing payloads that will be deployed to Apophis's surface. This effort represents one of the few cases worldwide in which students directly contribute to flight hardware destined to leave Earth orbit. "This project challenges us to do three things never done before," said Dr. Arai. "First, we will conduct a rapid-response planetary defense/asteroid mission through industry-academia collaboration. Second, CubeSat heritage technologies are being utilized in the lander design. Third, engineering students with hands-on CubeSat development experience will develop the lander. These efforts connect education directly to exploration and continues Japan's legacy of contribution in asteroid missions." The ApophisExL spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at Apophis before the asteroid passes Earth and will remain nearby to conduct observations throughout the April 13, 2029 encounter. During this flyby, Apophis will come within about 32,000 kilometers of Earth, passing inside the orbit of geostationary satellites and becoming visible to the naked eye for billions of people. ChibaTech's payload suite includes a multiband imaging camera mounted on the ExLabs mothership and deployable CubeSat-shaped landers known as CubeLanders. These systems are designed to investigate the asteroid's surface composition and structure, building on flight heritage from ChibaTech student CubeSat projects and Japan's Hayabusa missions. "Giving students the opportunity to design and fly hardware that will land on an asteroid is transformative. It reshapes how they see engineering, science, and their role in humanity's future in space. Japan has a strong legacy in asteroid exploration, and this mission extends that legacy through international collaboration and a new commercial approach to deep-space. We're proud to partner with ExLabs on a mission that places students at the center of real deep space exploration." - Joi Ito, President, Chiba Institute of Technology. The partners present ApophisExL as a new model for access to deep space. Historically, asteroid missions have been large, multi billion dollar undertakings driven by national space agencies, but this mission is structured as a commercially led, fully operated deep-space flight with co-manifested payload access intended to cut costs, complexity, and barriers to participation. "We're working to overcome the barriers that have long kept deep-space exploration in the hands of only the largest space agencies," said Keiko Nakamura-Messenger, Vice President of Mission Development at ExLabs and a former NASA mission scientist. "There are likely dozens of advanced, space-qualified instruments sitting in cleanrooms around the world, flight spares, experiments from missions that never launched, or amazing instruments developed by college students. ExLabs is building the affordable, flexible spacecraft needed to give these payloads real flight opportunities to the inner solar system. Our collaboration with ChibaTech embodies our vision of deep space exploration: internationally collaborative, commercially enabled, and open to the next generation for the future space exploration." ApophisExL is described as the first in a planned series of fully hosted deep-space missions that follow this commercial rideshare model. ExLabs positions the approach as a way to establish a recurring cadence of deep-space opportunities for science, defense, university, and commercial customers. To help ensure mission readiness and adherence to established deep-space practices, ExLabs is working with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on mission architecture support, spacecraft design reviews, and operational planning. JPL's involvement is intended to align the commercial mission with deep-space stand