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At the recently held 3rd Tiandu International Conference on Deep Space Exploration, Wu Weiren, Chief Designer of China's Lunar Exploration Program, stated that China is planning to carry out a kinetic impact demonstration mission on an asteroid to verify the feasibility of the asteroid defense program. Academician Wu Weiren introduced that this mission intends to adopt a "flyby + impact + flyby" operational mode, launching an observer and an impactor. The observer will arrive first to conduct close-up observations of the target asteroid and obtain detailed data on its characteristics; subsequently, the impactor will carry out a high-speed impact on the asteroid. The entire impact process will utilize a ground-space joint approach and technologies such as close-range high-speed imaging to observe changes in the asteroid's orbit, morphology, and ejecta, thereby accurately assessing the impact effect.
It is reported that asteroid exploration, defense, and resource development hold profound strategic significance for all of humanity and have also become a broad consensus of the international community. China will issue a cooperation initiative to global partners and conduct active cooperation in areas including joint ground-based monitoring, joint research and development as well as payload integration, and data and achievement sharing. |
