{"id":772670,"date":"2026-07-19T21:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T21:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/772670\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T21:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T21:04:09","slug":"china-plans-to-hit-an-asteroid-with-a-mach-26-projectile-in-planet-defence-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/772670\/","title":{"rendered":"China plans to hit an asteroid with a Mach 26 projectile in planet defence test"},"content":{"rendered":"

China\u2019s first planetary defence mission<\/a> appears to be far more ambitious than Nasa\u2019s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (Dart), according to a new paper outlining its plan to slam a spacecraft into an asteroid before 2030.Unlike Dart<\/a>, a proof-of-concept that nudged one asteroid\u2019s orbit around another, China is aiming for a more realistic planetary-defence test.<\/p>\n

It aims to directly alter an asteroid\u2019s orbit relative to Earth, \u201cor even break up its structure\u201d, according to a team led by Li Mingtao, chief scientist for planetary defence at the China National Space Administration.<\/p>\n

The spacecraft was expected to hit its target at more than 9km (5.6 miles) per second \u2013 compared with Dart\u2019s 6.1km\/s \u2013 during a close approach to within about 7 million km of Earth in 2029 or 2030, the paper said.<\/p>\n

The paper is under peer review by the Chinese-language Journal of Deep Space Exploration.<\/p>\n

The impact speed is equivalent to over 26 times the speed of sound near sea level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China\u2019s first planetary defence mission appears to be far more ambitious than Nasa\u2019s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (Dart),…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[329735,144,6121,6122,52589,2300,22245,52593,236182,329734,718,115966,79,27754],"class_list":["post-772670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-2015-xf261","tag-china","tag-china-national-space-administration","tag-chinese-academy-of-sciences","tag-dart","tag-earth","tag-european-space-agency","tag-hera","tag-journal-of-deep-space-exploration","tag-li-mingtao","tag-nasa","tag-planetary-defence","tag-science","tag-venus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}