Planetary Defense Experiments: China Plans Mission to Deflect Asteroid

after success Following NASA’s planetary defense test in 2022, China’s space agency has announced ambitious plans to launch a rocket space ship By 2030. This mission aims to transform the course of a asteroid Near Earth, using an approach similar to that used by NASA’s DART mission. The asteroid chosen for the impact deflection test is 2015 XF261, a new study published by the National Space Science Center of China reveals.

The Chinese spacecraft will spend a day before impacting. Three to six months orbiting the asteroid. During this period it will be used Four scientific tools On board are instruments to analyze the asteroid’s size and composition. These include a 3D spectrograph, a color camera, a radar, and a dust and particle analyzer.

Later, the spacecraft will serve as AriesIt collided with the asteroid to try to change its orbit. This direct impact technique was previously demonstrated by NASA’s DART mission, which in 2022 successfully changed the orbit of a binary asteroid, moving the small asteroid Dimorphos by about 32 minutes, or 4% of its orbit around its parent asteroid Didymos.

After the collision, the Chinese space agency will monitor the asteroid for up to a period of time. six to twelve monthsand monitor any changes in its orbital path. This monitoring is crucial to assessing the effectiveness of the impact method and collecting valuable data that could benefit future planetary defense missions.

The success of the DART mission also revealed that the impact dispersed about 1% of Dimorphos’ mass into space and displaced about 8% of the asteroid’s mass onto its rocky surface. These results provided significant confirmation that ramming technology could be an option. effective To protect Earth from potential asteroid threats.

In addition, a European Space Agency mission, called HERA, is scheduled to launch in October this year with the aim of visiting Didymos and Dimorphos to study the impact area up close. HERA is expected to reach the asteroid pair in 2026 and will be able to see in detail how DART’s impact affected the asteroid’s surface.

With these developments, the international scientific community continues to make significant progress in this field. planetary defenseIt is an area of ​​increasing importance in light of the potential threats that asteroids may pose to our planet.