China plans high-speed asteroid impact test before 2030

China is preparing to launch its first planetary defense test mission before 2030, aiming to deflect a near-Earth asteroid by striking it with a high-speed spacecraft. The mission, detailed in a new research paper currently under peer review, is designed to be more ambitious than NASA's previous Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) by attempting to directly alter an asteroid's orbit around the Sun relative to Earth.

According to the paper, led by Li Mingtao, chief scientist for planetary defense at the China National Space Administration (CNSA), the mission involves two spacecraft launching together. One will serve as a kinetic impactor, designed to collide with the target asteroid at a speed exceeding 9 kilometers per second, or roughly 26 times the speed of sound. This velocity is significantly faster than the 6.1 kilometers per second achieved by NASA's DART mission in 2022. The second spacecraft will act as an observer, monitoring the asteroid before, during, and after the impact to track changes in its orbit, shape, surface, and internal structure.

The planned impact is scheduled to occur during a close approach when the asteroid comes within approximately 7 million...