The Chinese mission will combine the “ramming” of the asteroid and observation of its impact in one launch, reports Spacenews with reference to the presentation of the Chinese Deep Space Research Laboratory presented at the 8th Conference of the International Academy of Astronautics dedicated to planetary protection.
The near-Earth object 2019 VL5 with a 30-meter diameter was chosen as the target for testing the planetary protection system. In 2025, the Long March 3B rocket will be launched – immediately with an “impactor” and an observation ship: the second will reach the object first – for initial observations and assessment of the asteroid’s topography, and later the impactor will crash into the asteroid at a relative speed of 6.4 km/s There are plans to change the speed of the object to 5 cm/s.
An observer ship equipped with optical, radar and laser remote sensing instruments, as well as a dust and particle analyzer, will assess the impact of the impactor on the asteroid. A high-resolution camera on board the observer will also capture the ejecta triggered by the collision while in a 30-kilometer orbit—perpendicular to the impactor’s trajectory.
During the annual observing windows in October and November, ground-based telescopes, as well as the orbiting Xuntian Telescope, will join in studying the ram’s effects.
The mission combines elements of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) and the European Space Agency’s Hera (which will later observe the target DART system to study the effects of the collision more precisely).
China’s test is part of a wide-ranging planetary defense plan the country is developing to counter threats posed by near-Earth asteroids, including an asteroid detection and early warning system. Earlier reports indicated that the Planetary Defense Test mission was initially targeting asteroid 2020 PN1 and was due to launch in 2026.
2019 VL5 is much smaller than Dimorphos, an Aten-class asteroid (a group of objects that cross Earth’s orbit but have an orbital period of less than one year). Its predecessor, 2020 PN1, is now considered a backup target, along with several other objects, in case the mission has to be launched in 2026 or 2027.
