China will launch its own planetary defense experiment

(ESA/P. Carrilhttps://bit.ly/41fo5Gk)

China is planning to launch its own planetary defense experiment and it has already chosen a target: the 30-meter near-Earth asteroid 2019 VL5.

It is expected that in 2025 two probes will be launched to it, one of which will ram the asteroid in order to change its orbit.

The first practical experiment of protecting Earth from dangerous asteroids was conducted last fall by NASA.

The agency impacted the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) probe against the 160-meter asteroid Dimorphos, which forms a pair with the larger asteroid Didymos.

Further observations of the asteroid confirmed that the period of its revolution around Didymos changed by 32 minutes, proving that the kinetic impacting method is effective.

It is expected that in a few years the European station Hera will fly to Dimorphos, which will additionally explore both asteroids.

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CHINA’S TURN
China became interested in conducting a similar experiment in 2020, proposing the Enhanced Kinetic Impactor project

This project assumed a more complex scheme: the striker must first meet with a near-Earth asteroid, collect a large load of rocks on it, and then fly to the target asteroid and impact with it.

Thus, the researchers intended to increase the effectiveness of the ram by increasing the mass of the striker.

Then the Assembled Kinetic Impactor project was proposed, in which an increase in the mass of the striker was achieved by the upper stage of the heavy Long March-5 rocket.

In 2022, China's kinetic impact trial project became more similar to the DART and Hera missions and now included a small observation probe and striker probe.

The 40-meter near-Earth asteroid 2020 PN1 was chosen as the target, and the launch was scheduled for 2026.

However, in April 2023, the project changed again.

Now the target asteroid is the near-Earth asteroid 2019 VL5 from the Aten group, with a diameter of 30 meters, and 2020 PN1 is a backup target.

The launch of two probes has been postponed to 2025 and will be carried out using the Long March-3B launch vehicle.

First, an observer probe equipped with cameras, a radar and a dust analyzer will reach the asteroid, which will study it and observe the entire ramming process.

The impactor probe is expected to crash into 2019 VL5 at a speed of 6.4 kilometers per second.

Sources:

• Spacenews: https://spacenews.com/china-to-target-asteroid-2019-vl5-for-2025-planetary-defense-test/
• Interesting Engineering: https://interestingengineering.com/science/china-to-alter-asteroid-trajectory

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#science #space #china #asteroids #dart #upex #nftmc