Humanity is looking at a mission capable of capturing fragments of the moon in space and then the idea is to continue traveling for almost a decade to intercept a hybrid comet that acts like an asteroid in the heart of the solar system.
That is the objective of Tianwen-2, the new and bold Chinese mission that has just been launched towards two of the most enigmatic bodies ever studied, aboard a long-range 3B rocket, the probe left the Xichang launch center in China and is already on its way to a mysterious asteroid called Kamoʻoalewa (2016 HO3), a possible lunar fragment that orbits the Earth as a kind of hidden satellite and that is just the beginning.
The Tianwen-2 is a two-phase probe equipped with 11 scientific payloads, spectrometers, radars, high-resolution cameras, particle detectors and solar wind sensors, it will carry out three types of collection on the asteroid: floating sampling, anchored drilling and direct probing, all of this will be done in a body of just 40 to 100 meters in diameter, a difficult moving target with almost zero gravity.
After returning the samples to Earth around 2027, the probe will still redirect its trajectory to comet 311P/PanSTARRS, scheduled to be reached in 2035, and most fascinatingly, this comet exhibits hybrid behavior, behaving as an asteroid and comet at the same time, a true cosmic puzzle.
Unlike missions to larger planets Tianwen-2 needs
To carry out extremely delicate maneuvers, there are no stable orbits in such small bodies, which means that it must move as if it were docking on a floating mountain in space, as an ESA engineer explained “you will have to combine speed, rotation and exact orientation to touch the surface of the asteroid and collect the samples without damaging the instruments, in addition after the collection the Earth's own gravity will be used as a gravitational springboard to redirect the probe towards the comet in the main asteroid belt.
Despite not being directly mentioned as onboard AI, the Tianwen-2 has autonomous navigation, stabilization, and collection systems that make decisions in real time during the mission. This includes automatic trajectory adjustments, course correction, and interpretation of geological data during the flyby. These systems are essential to guarantee the safety and success of the mission, especially in environments where communication latency makes remote control in real time impossible. planetary, mining and space and studies on the origins of life.
While many still doubt China's technological advance, Tianwen-2 leaves a clear message: the space race is more alive than ever and is no longer dominated only by Western agencies.
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