Chinese space officials are planning an ambitious planetary defense mission, aiming to impact a near-Earth asteroid with a spacecraft traveling at Mach 26. The test, targeted for 2029 or 2030, seeks to demonstrate a more direct method of altering an object’s orbit than previous international efforts like NASA’s DART mission.
Targeting Asteroid 2015 XF261
The mission, which is currently under peer review in the Journal of Deep Space Exploration, focuses on the near-Earth asteroid 2015 XF261. The target is a relatively small space rock, measuring approximately 98 feet (30 meters) in width. Since its initial discovery, the asteroid has been observed only 74 times, leaving researchers with limited data regarding its precise composition and rotation.
The China National Space Administration (CNSA) plans to launch two spacecraft as part of a single mission. One vessel will serve as the kinetic impactor, while the second will conduct observations of the asteroid’s surface, shape, and orbital changes before and after the collision. This integrated approach differs from the sequence used by NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which relied on separate deployments for impact and observation, such as the Italian Space Agency’s LICIACube and the European Space Agency’s Hera mission.
Comparing Kinetic Impact Strategies
The Chinese mission aims for an impact speed of more than 5.6 miles per second (9 kilometers per second). This speed, which equates to over 26 times the speed of sound at sea level, is significantly faster than the 3.8 miles per second (6.1 kilometers per second) achieved by DART in September 2022. By delivering a higher velocity, the CNSA mission intends to transfer substantially more kinetic energy to the target asteroid.
For more on this story, see China Developing Space-Ground Asteroid Defense Network.
Researchers behind the Chinese plan contend that their approach offers a more accurate simulation of a genuine planetary defense scenario. While DART successfully altered the orbit of the moonlet Dimorphos around its parent asteroid, the team argues that their method aims to influence an asteroid’s trajectory relative to the Sun and Earth directly.
Mission Objectives and Future Timeline
The mission is scheduled to coincide with a close approach of 2015 XF261 to Earth, expected to occur in 2029 or 2030. During this window, the asteroid will be approximately 4.3 million miles (7 million kilometers) from our planet. A team led by Li Mingtao, the chief scientist for planetary defense at the CNSA, has indicated that the mission’s goals extend beyond simple deflection.
According to the South China Morning Post, the project aims to directly alter an asteroid’s orbit relative to Earth, or even break up its structure
if necessary. As the project moves through the peer-review process, the scientific community remains focused on whether the mission can successfully gather the necessary data to refine these high-speed deflection techniques for future planetary protection.