China made it public that it will be working on a defence system against asteroids that are close to our planet via the space agency official, as the country seems to update its long-term space goals.
Uncovering the fresh space project, Zhang Kejian, the head of the country’s National Space Administration, didn’t provide additional details during his opening remarks at a ceremony for China’s space day in Nanjing.
The country also made space exploration a top priority over the past few years, as the target of establishing a program that will work for thousands of space flights a year and haul tens of thousands of tons of cargo and passengers by the year 2045.
China is not the first country to announce its intents of building a system that may include extraterrestrial constructs (elements outside our planet) like asteroids, comets, etc.
In 2020, the European Space Agency made a deal costing 129 million euros to work on a spacecraft for a joint project with NASA to analyze how to deflect an asteroid on an impact course with Earth.
China is currently launching a mission in which a space probe will land on an asteroid nearby our planet to gather samples, and it will then go back to Earth to drop a capsule featuring the samples. After that, the probe would go on to orbit another comet.
The mission may require a decade to complete, according to Ye.
China and Russia signed a memorandum of understanding last month to develop an international lunar research station.
However, China remains firm on its goal of constructing a defence system against asteroids and comets that threaten to impact our dear planet.
