Forget NASA’s DART mission, China gunning for dangerous asteroid too

After NASA’s DART spacecraft successfully slammed into its target asteroid, China too is planning to save Earth from dangerous asteroids. it will conduct its own planetary defence test in 2025. The China National Space Agency is aiming to alter the orbit of a potentially dangerous asteroid by using a kinetic impactor test just the way NASA did a few days back. It is drafting a planetary defence plan by conducting technical studies and research into developing systems to counter the threats caused by near Earth asteroids, said Wu Yanhua, deputy director CNSA in a conversation with China Central Television (CCTV).

Notably, China is even developing a combined asteroid sample-return mission. The mission will reportedly target Earth’s quasi-satellite Kamoʻoalewa to deliver samples to Earth.

The mission is scheduled to be conducted around the end of the 14th Five-year plan period i.e, 2021-2025 or in 2026, Wu shared the details at China’s seventh national space day event in Wenchang, Hainan province.

He also added that the system will help to protect humanity from potentially threatening near-earth objects. China conducted its first Planetary Defence Conference in October 2021.

Meanwhile, NASA conducted its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) successfully on September 26. The spacecraft slammed into the target asteroid Dimorphous, a minor-planet moon orbiting the near Earth asteroid Didymos. Launched in November 2021, DART has looked to deflect the asteroid by using kinetic impact. LICIACube, the tiny Italian spacecraft that flew along with DART, captured the impact and it showed a large fireworks-like plume coming off the target asteroid after DART had slammed into it while the cloud of rocks and other debris spread quickly, like a giant puff of smoke. James Webb and the Hubble telescope too had captured the after effects of DART.

Additionally, the European Space Agency will also send its Hera mission to Didymos and Dimorphous later in the decade to study the after effects of the DART mission impact.