China wants to strengthen its ability to detect and, if necessary, deflect potentially dangerous asteroids. The China National Space AdministrationCNSA, has announced that it will build a coordinated land and space surveillance system for near-Earth asteroids, with the aim of providing early warning and support for planetary defense against possible impacts.
The announcement comes in a context in which planetary defense is no longer a purely theoretical issue. Until June 2026, they had been discovered and cataloged more than 40,000 near-Earth asteroidsaccording to information released by CCTV echoed by Global Times. None of them are confirmed on a safe collision path with our planet, but the problem is on objects that have not yet been detectedespecially the smaller ones, which can go unnoticed until relatively soon.
The Chinese system will combine ground observatories with sensors in space. It is not enough to see an object when it is already close; for any planetary defense maneuver to be viable, You have to detect the asteroid with years of margincalculate its orbit accurately and confirm whether it represents a real threat. China assures that it has already achieved Initial advances in early warning models and algorithms for impact risks and working on an operational warning system for near-Earth asteroids.
The second part of the problem is what to do once the threat is detected. The most direct method is the kinetic impactwhich consists of crashing a ship or missile against the asteroid to slightly modify its trajectory. It’s not about destroying it, but to change its course enough so that, with the passage of time, it stops crossing Earth.
There are other more complex options, as explained Song Zhongpingan expert in military affairs and aerospace technology, to the Global Times. A gravity tractor It would be a ship that would fly near the asteroid for an extended period. Its own gravity, although very small, would pull the object constantly until its orbit was altered. The laser ablation It would consist of heating the surface of the asteroid with lasers to vaporize part of the material. This expelled material would act as a kind of natural push in the opposite direction. The continuous pushing techniques They seek the same objective through a sustained force for weeks or months, for example with engines installed on a ship docked to the asteroid.
Although all this may seem more typical of science fiction, there is a precedent for DARTthe NASA mission that in September 2022 impacted Dimorphosa small moon of the asteroid Didymos. The test managed to modify its orbit around Didymos and confirmed that kinetic impact can function as a planetary defense technique if applied early enough. NASA then reported a reduction of 32 minutes in the orbital period of Dimorphos, while later studies placed the change at around 33 minutes.
Europe also takes part in planetary defense with Herathe mission of the European Space Agency launched on October 7, 2024 to closely study the consequences of the DART impact. Its arrival in the Didymos system is scheduled for November 2026, with the aim of measuring in more detail what happened in Dimorphos and how the asteroid responded to the blow.
China now wants to enter that same technological race. Wu Weirenchief designer of the Chinese lunar exploration program, has indicated that the country plans carry out a kinetic impact test against an asteroid in 2027 located tens of millions of kilometers away, with the aim of altering its orbit and then evaluating the result. According to the Global Times, the mission will include subsequent observations to measure the actual effectiveness of the impact.