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HELSINKI — Chinese scientists are proposing using a pathfinder spacecraft to make a flyby of asteroid Apophis when it makes a close approach to Earth in 2029.
The team behind the concept are proposing a pathfinder spacecraft flyby of asteroid Apophis during its close Earth approach, leveraging a proposed mission to deploy asteroid-spotting spacecraft in Venus-like orbits.
The mission would consist of two small satellites sent into a halo orbit around Sun-Earth Lagrange point 1 to await the approach of Apophis and transfer into a flyby orbit so as to meet the asteroid shortly after its close encounter with the Earth. The asteroid is due to pass within the geosynchronous orbit belt on Friday, April 13, 2029.
The CROWN/Apophis concept tags onto a proposed asteroid surveyor mission. That mission, named CROWN and for which the preliminary design is completed, would consist of six heterogeneous wide-field near-Earth surveyors in Venus-like, heliocentric orbits and proposes to substantially improve the searching and tracking of NEAs. It would, if approved, form part of China’s assets for a planned comprehensive planetary defense program.
The science objectives of CROWN/Apophis, according to Jian-Yang Li of Sun Yat-sen University, who presented the proposal at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) and Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) joint session in Helsinki, Sept. 8, would be to measure the fundamental properties of a potentially hazardous asteroid and the effects of its close encounter with planet Earth. It would aim to observe how movement of material on Apophis is induced, any dust activity, and how it interacts with the terrestrial magnetosphere.
The larger, 44-kilogram spacecraft would use combined chemical and ion propulsion and carry a narrow angle camera, microwave ranging/doppler system, a formation monitoring camera and a low-frequency radar. An 8 kg cubesat would carry some of the same systems as the main spacecraft.
“This is a very rare opportunity for planetary science, and there are many parties already proposing missions or concepts…. And so we don’t want to miss the opportunity in China,” Li said.
Launch is proposed to be a yet-to-be-identified rideshare mission to geosynchronous transfer orbit, then the spacecraft would slowly raise its orbit to reach L1.
“We hope to coordinate with and complement other missions, including RAMSES, DESTINY+ and OSIRIS-APEX,” Li said, referring to respective missions from the European Space Agency (ESA), Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NASA, which are in different stages of development, funding and operation, in the latter case.
Michael Nolan, deputy principal investigator of OSIRIS-APEX, stated in an earlier presentation on the mission that Congressional language in a bill not yet passed includes funding for OSIRIS-APEX. RAMSES faces its own funding decision in November at an ESA Ministerial. Other smaller class missions, in the U.S. and Europe, are being proposed.
The value of multiple missions would be very high, according to scientists at EPSC-DPS. “It’s going to enhance our scientific return, such as cross verification and comparison, the results provide scientific context to each other and provide redundancies.” Li said.
He added that the team, based in Macau, has international partners from Brazil, Uruguay, Spain and France, but is also seeking further cooperation, which would likely benefit the mission’s chances of gaining approval, possibly by the end of the year. It is also looking at commercial avenues to make the mission happen.
Li was also involved in another Chinese rapid response proposal to study 99942 Apophis which would have employed a swarm of cubesats to make multiple flybys.
China is, meanwhile, working towards its first planetary defense mission, a kinetic impactor with a combined surveyor spacecraft, expected to launch around 2027. The country also launched a near Earth asteroid sample return mission, Tianwen-2, late May. China’s first space mission to an asteroid was a flyby of the asteroid Toutatis in 2012, conducted by repurposing the Chang’e-2 lunar orbiter for an extended mission.
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