China plans to crash 26 Mach spacecraft into an asteroid
What's the story
China is gearing up for its first planetary defense mission, a project that is much more ambitious than NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART). The China National Space Administration (CNSA) plans to crash a spacecraft into an asteroid before 2030. The objective of this mission is not just to nudge an asteroid's orbit, but actually change it in relation to Earth or even break it apart.
Mission
Speed of impact will be more than DART
The CNSA plans to hit the target asteroid at over 9km/s, which is more than 26 times the speed of sound near sea level.
This is much faster than NASA's DART mission, which impacted its target at a speed of 6.1km/s.
The impact will happen during a close approach when the asteroid comes within some seven million kilometers of Earth in 2029 or 2030.
Advanced approach
China's approach is more direct
Unlike DART, which was a proof-of-concept mission that only nudged one asteroid's orbit around another, China's approach is more direct. The team behind this ambitious project is led by Li Mingtao, the chief scientist for planetary defense at CNSA.