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[EN VIDÉO] Dart, a suicide mission to deflect an asteroid For planetary defense, the Dart probe will travel to a double asteroid and collide with it in order to measure its impact on its orbit. In video: launch, deployment and progress of the mission.© NASA, Johns Hopkins APL, Steve Gribben, Jessica Tozer
The announcement was made on Sunday April 24 on the Chinese media CCTV by Wu Yanhua, the deputy director of the Chinese space agency (CNSA), on the occasion of the day of the 52and anniversary of the launch of the very first Chinese satellite. Wu Yanhua said the mission would be done by 2025 or 2026.
For now, the mission is being designed. The target asteroid has not yet been selected. the program would consist of setting up a monitoring system and developing modeling transactions against a NEO. Then, the Cnsa wants the mission to make some close observations of the object before sending an impactor there to deviate one’s way.
Of course, this mission is experimental. This is to check the capacity of a mission robotics to divert the path of a small body which would prove to be a threat to the Earth, like NASA’s Dart mission. The target will probably be a small asteroid in order to better see the effects of the impact on its trajectory.
China launches planetary protection program
The first thoughts date back to October 2021, when China organized its first planetary defense conference. The State intends to put in place by 2025 a device capable of cataloging, tracking and monitoring these objects which can potentially threaten the earth passing not far. China also wants to set up a rapid response system. It is within this framework that this diversion mission falls, for the sole purpose of demonstration.
China once flew by an asteroid in December 2022, with the Chang’e 2 orbital lunar probe who was then on mission extension when she took her shots of Toutatis. An asteroid sample return mission is also plannedwith take-off by 2025.
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