China has announced its plans to launch a planetary defence mission to the near-Earth asteroid 2019 VL5. The target was announced by Chen Qi, who is associated with China’s Deep Space Exploration Laboratory, during a presentation at the 8th IAA Planetary Defense Conference held in Vienna last week. If successful, this mission will be the second planetary defence test to collide with an asteroid, following NASA’s DART mission in 2021.
The 2019 VL5 is a small asteroid that measures around 108 feet (33 metres) in diameter and orbits the Sun approximately once every 365 days, which means it often comes close to Earth. While NASA classifies it as a near-Earth asteroid (NEA) it is not categorised as a potentially hazardous space rock since simulations show that it is not likely to impact Earth in the foreseeable future.
The Chinese planetary defence test mission to 2019 VL5 is scheduled to launch in 2025 aboard a Long March 3B rocket. Like NASA’s DART mission, China’s planetary defence mission will involve an observer and impactor spacecraft that will collide with the 2019 VL5 to alter its movement.
According to a report from the Chinese state media outlet CCTV in November 2022 each spacecraft will follow a separate trajectory. The observer will reach 2019 VL5 first to analyse the space rock and study its topography. Meanwhile, the impactor will arrive later and collide with the asteroid. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) aims to change the trajectory of the 2019 VL5 by 1 to 2 inches (3 to 5 centimetres). After three months, this is expected to alter the asteroid’s path by 620 miles (1,000 kilometres).
After the collision, the observer spacecraft will conduct follow-up observations, and China’s Xuntian space telescope is likely to monitor the asteroid as well. CNSA first announced the mission last year, along with its plans to develop a planetary defence system that would include an early warning alarm system for potentially hazardous asteroids heading towards Earth.
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