China is preparing a mission to alter an asteroid's trajectory
Chinese scientists are preparing a planetary defense mission in which a spacecraft is set to collide with a near-Earth asteroid in order to alter its trajectory.
According to the mission plan, the impactor will collide with asteroid 2015 XF261 at a speed of over 9 km/s—more than 26 times the speed of sound. The mission is tentatively scheduled for launch in 2029–2030.
In addition to the impactor, China will launch a second space probe to observe the asteroid before, during, and after the impact in order to assess the change in its orbit and study the celestial body’s structure.
According to the developers, the mission will mark the next stage in the development of planetary defense technologies following NASA’s DART experiment and will help test the effectiveness of a kinetic impact for deflecting potentially hazardous asteroids.
Source: Interesting Engineering.
Earlier, the Artemis II mission crew reached the halfway point on their journey to the Moon and sent back the first photos of Earth from deep space. This is the first human flight beyond Earth’s orbit since 1972.
The historic Artemis II mission, which sent humans to the Moon for the first time in over 50 years, has already faced its first challenges. During the flight, the crew experienced a brief “radio silence” as well as everyday difficulties that cannot be resolved with a simple call to a repairman.
