China launches spacecraft to collect asteroid samples in 2025

China plans to launch a second deep space exploration mission in 2025, according to China’s director of design for the Tianwen 1 mission to Mars, Zhang Rongqiao. The Tianwen 2 asteroid probe has entered the technical development stage. “The parts are undergoing comprehensive testing. We are progressing as scheduled and expect to launch in 2025,” Zhang said.

Tianwen 1 is a big step forward for China. This is the first interplanetary mission for which China has built its own vehicle. But the new mission is very complex and challenging. The 10-year-long Tianwen 2 mission will target the small near-Earth asteroid Kamo’oalewa, possibly a fragment of the Moon. The spacecraft will collect samples from the asteroid using a “touch and fly” technique similar to Japan’s Hayabusa 2 probe and NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex.

Tianwen 2 will also try an unprecedented method called “anchor and mount”, which uses four robotic arms to land on Kamo’oalewa. Drills on the arms will help the probe stick to the 40 m asteroid’s surface. As expected, Thien Van 2 will return to Earth after launching for more than 2 years, dropping priceless packages. But that is not the final milestone of the mission. After dropping the package, the Tianwen 2 spacecraft will use the Earth’s magnetic field to fly to another remnant of the solar system, which is an “active asteroid”, which has both features of asteroids and comets.

The spacecraft will make its roughly seven-year journey to 311P/PANSTARRS. There, it will orbit and analyze the object using a series of cameras and spectrometers. The Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences will participate in this phase of the mission by providing particle detectors and solar wind.

Next, the Tianwen 3 mission with a launch date of 2028 will seek to collect samples from Mars and bring them back to Earth, while the Tianwen 4 mission will send a probe to Jupiter.

An Khang (According to Space)