China planning asteroid re-direct mission for planetary defense test

China planning asteroid re-direct mission for planetary defense test

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A video NASA released on Wednesday shows the debris caused by the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission spacecraft slamming into the asteroid Dimorphos. (Courtesy: NASA / ESA / STScI / Jian-Yang Li (PSI) / Joseph DePasquale (STScI))

After NASA‘s successful planetary defense test in 2022, China’s space agency plans to launch a spacecraft designed to redirect a near-Earth asteroid by 2030.

In a recent paper, China’s National Space Science Center said it has selected asteroid 2015 XF261 for a kinetic impact deflection test. 

China’s spacecraft will first orbit the asteroid for about 3 to 6 months, using four onboard instruments to study its size and composition. The spacecraft will have four scientific instruments: a spectral and 3D detector, a color camera, radar and dust and particle analyzer. 

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NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory small body database shows asteroid 2015 XF261.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory small body database shows asteroid 2015 XF261. 

(NASA)

After surveying the asteroid, the spacecraft will fly into it, acting as an impactor or battering ram. After the impact, China will observe changes to the asteroid’s orbit over six to 12 months.

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirect Test was declared a successful first planetary defense test after the spacecraft was able to change the orbit of a moonlet asteroid, Dimorphos, around its parent asteroid, Didymos, by about 32 minutes or 4%.

A study published earlier this year estimated that the DART impact threw about 1% of Dimorphos’s mass into space and moved about 8% of the asteroid’s mass on its rocky body. 

Astronomers using the NSF’s NOIRLab’s SOAR telescope in Chile captured the vast plume of dust and debris blasted from the surface of the asteroid Dimorphos by NASA’s DART spacecraft when it impacted on 26 September 2022.

Astronomers using the NSF’s NOIRLab’s SOAR telescope in Chile captured the vast plume of dust and debris blasted from the surface of the asteroid Dimorphos by NASA’s DART spacecraft when it impacted on 26 September 2022. (Image Credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/SOAR/NSF/AURA/T. Kareta (Lowell Observatory), M. Knight (US Naval Academy)

A European Space Agency spacecraft named HERA is expected to launch in October to visit Didymos and Dimorphos and study the impact area up close. HERA should arrive at the pair in 2026 and be able to confirm how much DART changed the surface of the asteroid.

China is targeting 2027 to launch its planetary defense spacecraft.