China plans to shift the orbit of a potentially dangerous asteroid

China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced mission to deorbit an asteroid. To do this, a spacecraft will crash into it.

The mission was announced as part of a larger planetary defense program that will focus on cataloging and tracking near-Earth asteroids - especially those that could pose a threat to our planets. It is also planned to develop a new warning system about a possible danger.

The plan is to identify an asteroid that could threaten Earth and send a spacecraft to crash into it, changing its orbit. But before that, it is still very early: the project is still at the approval stage, and the goal has not yet been determined. If the project is approved, they want to conduct an experimental launch as early as 2025 at an object potentially dangerous for the Earth.

If this all sounds familiar, you're not mistaken: a similar mission called NASA's DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) launched back in November. As part of it, the probe will collide with Dimorph, a satellite of the asteroid Didymus, to change the orbit of both of them. The collision will take place on September 26, 2022.