China plans to deflect asteroid 2020 PN1, a rock the size of a school bus, in a mission to be launched in 2026. This has been explained Long Lehaoseries lead designer cohetes Long March, at a recent ‘China Science and Innovation’ series conference. It is not that it is a dangerous asteroid, since according to computer simulations, this body that orbits the Sun at a distance of about 500,000 kilometers from Earth at its closest point, indicates that its trajectory does not coincide with an impact with our planet. However, China wants to test its ability to deflect the trajectory of this type of body.
The mission will consist of an impactor (a ship that will crash into 2020PN1) along with an orbiter (which will measure the consequences of the crash), which will be launched on a Long March 3B rocket. These elements indicate a hybrid between NASA’s Dart mission and the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera. Dart, en route to the binary system of two asteroids Dimorphoswill impact next fall against the smaller of the two asteroids (which orbits the larger one, like a sort of ‘moon’).
Two years later the HERA mission will depart, whose objective will be to surround Dimorphos, mapping its surface, measuring its mass and determining the effect of DART on its orbit. Also, two CubeSats The size of a briefcase will land on the asteroid to collect data on the composition and origin of the rock.
China earlier announced plans in April to try to alter the orbit of a potentially threatening asteroid with a kinetic impact test as part of plans for a comprehensive planetary defense system. In fact, Chinese researchers had previously published articles on concepts for kinetic impactors: ‘Assembled Kinetic Impactor’ (AKI); and the so-called ‘Enhanced Asteroid Deflector’, which would first pick up rocks from a near-Earth asteroid before slamming all this payload onto a potentially dangerous asteroid.
The China National Space Administration (CNSA) has also previously stated that it will establish an early warning system and develop software to simulate operations against near-Earth objects and test and verify basic procedures.
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