Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Tianwen-2: China closes in on Kamoʻoalewa

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

China’s Tianwen-2 spacecraft has successfully arrived at Kamoʻoalewa—a tiny, enigmatic "quasi-satellite" that dances along with Earth on its trek around the Sun. A fascinating scientific debate is heating up over this object's true identity: is it a standard, heavily space-weathered asteroid, or is it a long-lost chunk of our own Moon, violently blasted into space by an ancient impact? Tianwen-2 is on a mission to solve this cosmic identity crisis, and it is happening right now. This week, we sit down with Andrew Jones, a contributing editor for The Planetary Society and a freelance space journalist covering China's rapidly accelerating lunar and planetary exploration programs. He takes us inside the mission to reveal how Tianwen-2 will attempt to hover and snatch samples from this mysterious world, what those pieces could teach us about our Solar System's history, and where China’s planetary ambitions are targeting next. Then, Chief Scientist Bruce Betts joins us for What’s Up to look ahead at asteroid missions and moments on the horizon through the end of this decade, from a Hayabusa2 flyby of asteroid Torifune next month to the 2029 close approach of asteroid Apophis. Discover more at: https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/2026-tianwen-2See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

China's Tianwen II intercepts a bizarre companion world this week on planetary radio. I'm Sarah al-Ahmad of the Planetary Society, with more of the human adventure across our solar system and beyond. Earlier this month, China's Tianwen-2 spacecraft arrived at Kamau-Aleva, a tiny, mysterious quasi-satellite of Earth. It may be a piece of the moon itself, or something else entirely. I sat down with Andrew Jones, a freelance space journalist who covers the China National Space Administration, to talk about Tian Wen to what we hope to learn from the samples it returns to Earth and where China's planetary exploration ambitions go from here. Then Bruce Betz, our chief scientist here at the Planetary Society, joins me for What's Up. With asteroid day just around the corner,

we're going to be looking at some of the most exciting asteroid moments through the end of this decade, from a flyby that's happening just next month to 2029, when the asteroid Apophis passes closer to Earth than our geostationary satellites. If you love planetary radio and want to stay informed about the latest space discoveries, make sure you hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcasting platform. By subscribing, you'll never miss an episode filled with new and awe-inspiring ways to know the cosmos and our place within it. Happy Almost Asteroid Day, everyone. June 30th marks this annual global event.

It's observed on the anniversary of the 1908-Tunguska impact, when a small asteroid or comet exploded over a remote region of Siberia with the, energy of a large nuclear weapon. It's a day to celebrate our growing understanding of these ancient travelers, and to reflect on why finding and studying them matters so much. Right now we're living through the most extraordinary chapter in the history of asteroid science. In just the last few decades, humanity has done something that would have seemed like science fiction just a generation ago. We've actually brought pieces of asteroids back to Earth. In 2010, Japan's original Hayabusa probe overcame massive solar flares, fuel leaks, and a near-fatal communications failure,

but eventually brought home humanity's very first asteroid samples, about 1,500 microscopic dust grains from the stony asteroid Itokawa. That gritty proof of concept paved the way for a massive sample return that followed. In December 2020, Japan's follow-up mission, Hayabusa-2, returned pristine, rocky material from a carbon-rich asteroid called Ryugu. The results were absolutely stunning. Scientists found amino acids, organic molecules, and water-bearing minerals, chemical clues about the conditions that gave rise to life in our solar system.

Then, in September 2023, NASA's Osiris Rex delivered samples from asteroid Benu, an asteroid with the name that it was actually chosen through a student naming contest run by the Planetary Society. And Benu's samples told a very similar story. a world rich in carbon and the chemistry of life's building blocks, and evidence that water-bearing minerals were once widespread in the early solar system. These samples aren't just rock collections. They're time capsules, four and a half billion years old, and they're fundamentally changing how we understand where we came from.

And now, China has entered this extraordinary chapter. On May 28, 2025, the China National Space in New York, administration launched Tianwen II, its first asteroid sample return mission. On June 7th of this year, the spacecraft completed its first rendezvous maneuver and is now closing in on Kamo-Aleva ahead of a sample collection attempt. After it completes its work there and drops the samples back at Earth, it's going to go visit a comet, making it a really ambitious mission. Kam-O-O-Aleva takes its name from a Hawaiian creation chant, the Kumu Lippo, and translates to to the oscillating fragment. It's a nod to the way that it appears to dance around the Earth as both

it and the planet orbit the sun. It was first discovered in 2016 by the PanStar survey, and it's just 40 to 100 meters wide, and spins about every 28 minutes. Unlike the moon, Kama or Aleva isn't gravitationally bound to the Earth. Instead, it orbits the sun on a path so similar to ours that from Earth's perspective, it appears to loop around us in a slow, stable waltz, what astronomers call a quasi-satellite. It's not a moon, but it's not quite a typical asteroid either. It's a companion. And here's the mystery at the heart of this mission, although it is also very much a tech demo. Nobody is entirely sure where Kamo-O-Alaiva came from. Some scientists think it's a fragment of the moon that was blasted off into space by an impact.

Others argue that it's a heavily space-weathered asteroid. Tian Wen-2 is going to help us figure it out. To get some perspective on this mission, I spoke with Andrew Jones, a freelance space journalist based in Finland who covers China's rapidly growing space program. He's written a bunch of space-related publications, including for space.com, space news, national geographic, sky and telescope, new scientist, and of course the Planetary Society. Here's my conversation with Andrew Jones. Hey, Andrew. Thanks for joining me. Hey, Sarah. Thanks very much for having me.

I am such a fan of your work. It's so infrequent that there's an English language source that goes in depth on these China National Space Administration missions. And I'm so grateful that you do the work that you do because there's so many amazing things they're doing up that space agency right now. Yeah. At the moment, there's so much going on across all areas of there. space industry. It's really staggering. It's very hard to kind of keep up with everything that's going on, especially in the last few years with the acceleration of their commercial program on top of everything else. But also, yeah, we're seeing interplanetary missions. We're seeing a whole

new batch of space science missions. It's really a fascinating time. Well, I've been really curious for a while. How does a Finland-based journalist end up becoming the world's leading English language voice on China's space program. How did you get into this job? Well, first of all, that's a very kind characterization, so thank you for that. But my kind of personal story with space is kind of a bit long and mixed. I mean, it goes back to like I was three or four years old and saw pictures of the planets from, I know, maybe pioneer or Voyager. I mean, that blew my my mind at the time that there was these other planets, places, worlds out there. So that for some reason just really got a hold of me.

But the thing is growing up in mid Wales, which is kind of the middle of nowhere, nice as it is, I ran out of ways to kind of explore my passion for space. And also had a lot of people like teachers and stuff telling me that this is nonsense, why you keep talking about space, why are you drawing, you know, spacecraft and planets when everyone else is throwing cows and cars and, you know, things like that. So it wasn't like the easiest kind of passion to have in some ways back then. And so I kind of fell out of touch with this passion for space, which I clearly had. And that actually came back to me a bit when my first child was on the way.

And I was thinking, okay, what was important to me and made me who I am and how I think and see the world, right? And I realized, oh, actually, space was actually fundamental to, you know, a lot of things, the way I think and what I'm interested in. And so I was already working as a journalist and I found some freedom to start reporting on space. And after that, having lived in China for a while and had some studies in the political system and so on that, so had an interest in China. I got the opportunity to kind of merge these two interests, found out that there wasn't that much dedicated coverage. I mean, you had Emily Loctawala, who was doing a great job in covering some of the, you know, back then, the infrequent, like, lunar missions that channel was doing. So, I mean, that was kind of, that helped me kind of get into back into space as well.

And actually Planetry Radio played a role in that as well. It's very accessible and but also in depth as well. So, you know, not just like the odd documentary you come across on TV or something like that. It actually takes you into the missions and the people behind them. So, I mean, that was actually very important as well. Believe it or not that I'm saying it on Planet Radio, but still. Wow. I mean, that's a huge honor to, to,

play a role in that. That's amazing. Well, I won't go. I always start naming names. But I mean, there's, you know, publications and podcasts out there which helped me kind of get back into it and realized, okay, there's lots going on in China. There was kind of a perception like a decade ago that a lot of what China was doing was merely for prestige. And I could see that that's not the case. So, okay, maybe I can make myself useful and just start covering this and find out what's

going on to the best of my ability. And I'm just very, very grateful that. you know, all these years later, I'm still doing this, and I hope it's helpful. It's very helpful. And there's so much more to write about every single day. I mean, it feels like just yesterday we were talking about Tian Wen 1 and the rover landing on Mars, and that being a huge moment for that space agency. And now we're looking at a whole timeline of upcoming missions in this Tian Wen series. Can you talk a little bit about where Tian Wen 2 fits into China's broader goal with this set of missions?

So I think that a lot of the time when you have someone on here from certain missions, that a lot of it is kind of ground up, science-driven kind of missions, right? You know, they come up with the question and then they find a way to, you know, form a mission to find out to answer this particular question or set of questions. I think what we're seeing with TN1-2 is it's very much an engineering-led mission. So they have particular engineering goals. They want to demonstrate particular capabilities and technologies, building on towards different missions. I think that TN1-2 is relevant for the Mars sample return mission, Tianan-1-3, which they plan to launch in late 2028, in the sense that this would be a first sample return at the second cosmic velocity.

So, you know, hitting the atmosphere at 12 kilometers per second. So they've already done this twice with their Changi 5 and Changa 6 missions, but that was slightly slower speed at like 11.2 kilometers per second. So it doesn't sound like much of a difference, but that change in velocity is, you know, another challenge which they have to overcome and demonstrate. And the other thing is that they're using iron propulsion and long-term operation in deep space. And that's relevant for the Jupiter mission, Tianwin 4, which is. scheduled for around 2030 and that would be an orbiter to go to the Jupiter system

and then eventually go into orbits around the Galilean Moon Calisto and possibly land or use an impactor. So the last person I spoke to who was fairly senior was like Lander was the kind of thing that was still the main proposal. So it's still a degree

of uncertainty despite that date getting closer. So yeah, Chenow 2 is very much engineering driven but at the same time the science behind it is also quite fascinating as well. It's interesting because this is one of those missions that's going to be going to multiple small bodies and it's going into orbit around them. And when I read that, I was like, it sounds a bit like the Dawn mission, NASA's Dawn

mission that went to series and Vesta. So I was like, how are they pulling that off? I wonder if they're using ion propulsion. And they are. And that absolutely blew my mind. That's really clever and definitely a very useful technology for this kind of thing. So I was very excited to read that. Yeah, every mission is fascinating in its own right.

But there's also, you know, these subplots and, you know, these developments which go on towards future possibilities. So, yeah, absolutely. Well, this mission is going to be going to two separate bodies. One's an asteroid and one's a comet. How did they come up with this mission? And why did they pick these targets? So the actual formulation of the mission, I can't really give much background into how on the engineering side decided that, okay, we're going to go to a neole Earth asteroid and then the main belt comet afterwards. It's quite difficult.

I think one thing that we've seen with Chinese missions is if you look at their lunar missions, right, they have a primary mission and then they'll pull off the primary mission and, you know, whether that be orbiting the moon. or collecting samples from the near side or the far side. But then what's happened is the service module has gone and done something different, right? And it's been, after that happened the first time, the second time, we're all kind of waiting, okay, where are they going to go next? Where is the service module going to head off to? Because for Changa 5T1, which was a test for the reentry of the sample capsule, that service module ended up in Earth Moon Lagrange Point 2.

And that was like, huh, why would they be going there? And then it was like, well, maybe they're thinking of landing on the far side of the moon. And so it was. So I think that this time they've just formalized everything and won't go and say, yes, we're going to go here. We're going to drop off the samples. But then, you know, we're going to go to a comet afterwards and make the most of the mission. So why particularly these bodies, I can't say. What I would say is that Camaro Leva is one of seven known quasi moons of Earth.

so in this kind of resonance orbit. And these have been discovered relatively recently. So, you know, that's maybe opportunistic in the sense that, okay, we've got something which is relatively low energy to get to and come back. It might even be a chunk of the moon, which we'll probably talk about later. So it gives us an opportunity to, you know, do some serious science and head off and do something else in a deeper part of space as well. So I think it checks off a lot of boxes.

So it's going to be rendezvousing with this asteroid and then it's going to be gathering a sample and then it has to go on to this comet. So at what point in this process is it going to be delivering these materials to Earth? Just ahead of the launch of Gen 1-2 back in late May 2025, there was a list of these different mission milestones, right? And so, of course, we don't know that this is official, but it's matched up with everything that's happened so far. So what we just seen over the weekend on June 7 was what we expected to be the rendezvous with Camaroa Lava. So I'm going to pronounce that very differently to you. I'm sure you know how to say much better than me.

But the China National Space Administration hasn't officially confirmed that this rendezvous maneuver to kind of put this into a similar orbit. to the asteroid has taken place. But AMSAT DL, which is like non-profit, tracking of objects, they used their telescopes in Bohm in Germany and Wingoo in Netherlands, and they pretty much confirmed that,

okay, this maneuver took place looking at the Doppler signals and everything like this. So it seems that everything went well. So from this point, looking at the kind of mission papers that have been put out there, what I'm kind of expecting is that the spacecraft is about 2,000 kilometers out from the asteroid at the moment and that what we're going to see over the next few weeks, or rather we're not going to see it, we're going to imagine that this is happening, that the spacecraft's going to begin this approach to the asteroid.

It's going to move from a couple of thousand kilometers out down to around about 20 kilometers. And I think that the schedule for that is that it arrives in a 20 kilometer, it's not really in orbit because the body's too small, but, you know, around 20 kilometers altitude out from camera or labor. And hopefully then we get the first images. I mean, probably now we're too far out to see much, given that this is a football's pitch-sized kind of object and, you know, it's just too far out. So hopefully then, July 4, we get the confirmation that, yes, Tian 1-2 is in its desired orbit.

Here's an image. And from there, they're going to spend, I think it's from... From July until April, 27, they're going to start mapping the asteroid using, I think, I've got LiDAR, they've got cameras, they've got a sounding radar. So they're going to find out as much as they can about the surface, about the topography and everything like this, and try and find some landing points for sampling. So they're going to be learning about this from July onwards. Take the samples using three different sampling techniques. well, at least two and then if possible they'll try to anchor and attach to the asteroid, depending on what the surface turns out to be.

And the departure then, all being well, they would depart from the asteroid on the 24th of April, 2027, which also happens to be China's National Space Day, which celebrates the anniversary of the first launch of a satellite by China back in 1970. And then I think it's 29th of November. year. So in a year and half, the reentry capsule should come through the atmosphere and land safely. And then we'll have a fourth set of samples from an asteroid. It's going to be really cool to have samples from one more body. But this is like a smaller kind of weird shaped asteroid with huge question marks on how it was formed. And you alluded to this earlier. Some people think that

it might be a chunk of the moon. And then there are other comparisons to things like L.L. chondrites and really low iron type meteoritic material. What can we learn about this that will give us some clue into, say, solar system formation? Like, why is this an interesting object? When I've been speaking to people about this, I think one of the first things that the scientists say is, like, every time we go to an asteroid, it's completely unknown. What we see like is just a complete surprise, right?

Whether it's the surface, the shape, whatever, it's just everything is just like, huh, really? It's like they build different models and ideas or something and then we actually get closer. It's like, oh, wow, okay. And then you learn so much more. So just going to another, you know, small world, if you will, it's just going to be fascinating and illuminating. On the science side, so, I mean, there are lots of papers out there about the origin. So this is of keen interest in the science community. So one idea is that this was sent into orbit by an impactor which hit the moon in the last 10 million years, hitting the far side.

I think it was the Giordano-Bruno crater, according to some models. And that was because they were looking at the spectra from this quasi-moon. And so they was really red and it kind of looked like lunar material. so then they kind of look at the orbits and then look, okay, what kind of impact could possibly have sent something like this out into orbit? So, you know, trying to put these clues together. On the other hand, there was some of saying that it's more likely based on the orbits that this came from a particular family of main belt asteroid and it kind of migrated inwards and ended up there. And kind of the reddening that they were seeing in the spectra is maybe due to extreme space weathering. So there's very different ideas of what's going on here.

So getting an answer to that, that's going to be, you know, fascinating. There's probably a few bets between people as well, no doubt. Also, I mean, if it turns out that this is a chunk of the moon, which ends up in a resonance orbit, I mean, that would tell us something about how these objects, you know, this kind of population of objects and how different bodies can end up, you know, similar orbit to the Earth. And then conversely, it would tell us lots about the, evolution of the solar system and kind of the impacts and collisions and everything like that. So it's going to be very interesting.

You mentioned a specific impact crater. How do they try to figure out that this object might be from that exact impact? Well, that's why I asked them exactly as well. I had the same question in my mind. But yeah, so my understanding is that they were looking at the orbits of camera or laver And, you know, this is kind of a short-term orbit that it's in, like, relatively. So I think it's been in something like this orbit for about 100 years, according to the models, and it's going to be there for another 300 years, and then, you know, things change after that.

So I think that what they were doing, they were looking at the spectra coming from the subject and seeing that, okay, this looks like, you know, something silicate-heavy kind of thing, similar to the moon, maybe, right? And then they were thinking, okay, well, if so, if it's in this orbit, it would have had to have been recent. And then they kind of go and look at the models that they have for, you know, the age of impacts and things like this and try to find something which would be in kind of the same time zone, I guess, like the same kind of timeframe rather for, you know,

an impact on look at something big enough, which might be able to chuck out something that big into space. So one of the candidates they came up with was, yeah, Diodano Bruno on the far side of moon. So that sounds like really, really specific, right? That you can narrow it down to this. But I mean, yeah, I mean, it's hard for me to talk about this because, I mean, people have done whole papers on this with all their methodology and models and everything, which is, you know, a bit beyond me. So, yeah, I try to be careful talking and misrepresenting this. But, I mean, that's, I think that's the basic idea where they're trying to, you know,

constrain things based on the information that they had. And this is the hypothesis that they came up with. So it might sound really kind of, you know, on first hearing, it's like, okay, that's oddly specific that you can come up with that crater, but it kind of, you know, I guess that there's not that many options when you kind of drill down into all the different factors. So yeah, but still very interesting. And the thing is that some of the people on the other side of the debate in the sense are saying, well, okay, if you look at the energy that needs to be generated to throw out this big a chunk of stuff out of the moon and out into a separate orbit. It's a lot, right?

So the interesting thing is it would be like if it does turn out to be a piece of the moon and they can trace it back to that particular creator, that would tell scientists something very interesting about, you know, the impact dynamics and the energies involved. So it's something that, you know, because we don't observe these things happening, then this would be another way to try and learn about what's going on and how, these collisions, you know, affected or played a part in the evolution of the solar system. So very fascinating questions. Yeah.

And happily, China has returned samples from the far side of the moon. So without that, we wouldn't have as much to compare to to really validate whether or not it comes from that region, which is fascinating in and of itself. Maybe we can with that kind of specificity say, yeah, it came from that actual impact. And that would be something wild. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it would be. So I think that, yeah, my understanding is that, like, if they can get the, I mean, getting close up to something like this, you might be able to tell something extra that we can't tell from the ground. But I think that they can tell a lot from the ground in terms of, you know, able to come up all these different hypotheses.

But, yeah, if they can get the samples safely onto Earth and then they find that the isotopic composition is similar to those of moon samples, then there you go. you've answered the question. Or then conversely, it's something which is much more like an asteroid. So, yeah, that's how they find out. And to have samples of this thing, I'm also very interested to see what kind of organic compounds are on there, given all the results we've seen from Hayabusa 2 and Osiris Rex. So it'll be really interesting when we get there.

But again, it's going to be a mystery up until we see the images of this object up close. And it's interesting that they're trying multiple samples. sampling techniques. We've seen previous missions try to do a kind of tag maneuver. And you mentioned the anchor and attach, but what's the third sampling method they're going to be trying to use on this? That would be a hover approach where they kind of match the rotation of the asteroid. And this is spinning really fast, by the way. This spins once every 28 minutes, which is really fast. And there's an idea that there's like a spin barrier. So if there's something spinning faster than say two, two and a half hours, then this can't be just like a, you know, a rubble pile which is coalesced.

It's probably like something monolithic, something. So they would try to match the rotation of the asteroid and then descend and use a robotic arm to kind of, I don't know, scoop to try and take some samples from here. So, I mean, probably looking to get small grains. And, I mean, that's very challenging. to match this rapidly rotating body and then try to deal with the kind of reaction forces and everything like this. So this is kind of a pioneering approach. So the idea is that, I mean, they're doing or they went equipped with three different sample techniques as kind of redundancy in the sense that we don't know what the surface of this asteroid is like.

So if we have different options, then there's more chance of getting samples. The other view to that would be that this is more of an engineering demonstration. They want to try different things rather than being overly concerned with how much samples they're getting. So from the outside, at least, there's different perspectives of, you know, is this adding risk or redundancy? Why are they, you know, being ambitious with so many different techniques? But yeah, I think that speaks to the kind of engineering-driven side of this mission. going to be very interesting to see if they can make these work. And I think the other thing is that the reason that they'd want to do this is because they have an interest going forward

in small bodies in the solar system. And potentially, you know, what they learn from this mission could also be applicable for, say, resource mining in the future. But so we've got the kind of more classic sampling techniques where you kind of get close to this object and just kind of scoop something up. We've seen other missions have troubles with this in the past because they were rubble asteroids. The whole thing. would break apart or you just bury the sampling arm into this object. But it sounds like given its rotation speed, we might have some clue that this might not be as rubbly as objects like Benu, say,

which might enable them to do this anchor and attach maneuver. Otherwise, the whole thing might just blow itself apart, trying to pull off that technique. So how does anchor and attach work? Looking at the papers that they've put out on this, I think if they go ahead with it and we actually see some footage from it, that would be the most illuminating thing. But I think they've got like a tripod mechanism for kind of, you know,

dampening the kind of the descent and the touchdown onto the surface. And if they're able to do that, then the robotic arm would have like a spike and a claw in which they would then attach the spacecraft to the asteroid. And then I imagine that the robotic arm would then be involved in the sampling. Or maybe they will do then use the touch and go apparatus. to take further sample. So I'm not quite sure on the specifics of that. But that would be quite something to see.

So, I mean, yeah, as you say, I mean, with Benu, I mean, that was a surprise where you go into sample the asteroid and then it's like, oh, we're actually inside the asteroid. Okay, this is a shock. So, yeah, it's, yeah, yeah. So the surface itself, it's going to be interesting to see if, you know, there's enough cohesion among this regolith, which is probably going to have for actually to attach. So it'd be quite spectacular if we get to see this. Yeah.

And hopefully it's a situation where it's easy enough to get attached, but also easy enough to separate from this object, because then it has to come back to Earth to deliver all these materials. So if things go a little wrong, what if the spacecraft gets stuck there? Yeah, yeah, it'd be interesting to see what their con-ops is for this, what kind of risks and everything. But, yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, the things we've just been talking about there just go to show how ambitious,

and exciting this kind of mission is both on the science side and the engineering side. So it's great that we get to see these things playing out in the solar system. We'll be right back with the rest of my interview with Andrew Jones after this short break. There is so much going on in space science and exploration, and we're here to share it with you. Hi, I'm Amber, digital community manager for the Planetary Society. Catch the latest space exploration news, pretty planetary pictures, and Planetary Society publications on our social media channels. You can find the Planetary Society on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

I hope you'll like and subscribe so you never miss the next exciting update from the world of planetary science. It's not super far away from Earth. I mean, it's a quasi-satellite of Earth, so it can't be super duper far away. But even given that there's going to be some kind of communication delay between Earth and this spacecraft. So what degree of autonomy does the mission have for making decisions, especially when it's dealing with an object that's so small and rotating so rapidly? Yeah, that's another aspect which they're looking to test and push forward with this mission is autonomous operations out in deep space.

So yeah, it's not the longest light delay, of course. So I can't remember. It's probably between 0.1, 0.3 astronomical units that they're there. dealing with. So it's significant in terms of, you know, wanting to actually send commands real time. It's not possible. So, yeah, this has been designed with a fair degree of autonomy as a test for future missions. Where would you say this kind of ranks technologically versus other asteroid sampling missions? Like, we've had some things that have had some autonomy in the past, but, you know, with an asteroid that's a little more predictably shaped, like something like Benu,

it's not quite as dicey as going toward a tiny object like this. You know, in terms of like mission design and everything like this, I mean, there's so many different variables and factors that I can't get my head around. But, yeah, I mean, looking at it, I mean, this is the smallest asteroid that humanities go into have visited so far, right? I think high booster two is going to reach a smaller one in like 2031 on its extended mission. But yeah, so far, you know, it's really small. It's rotating really fast, which has,

implications for reaction forces and what the surface should be like and everything like this. So sampling risks and also just like how much we don't know about it. So there's unknowns. So I really can't rank it. But other than to say, yeah, this is ambitious. And I think it has challenges that some of the other missions don't have. I mean, thinking about it, the interesting thing is that if there are, there's more smaller asteroids than there are larger asteroids. So if you're going to a smaller one, which is rapidly rotating, then if you're looking to do this again and again in the future, then this is a good test bed, right?

So it's really hard to say. It is absolutely amazing what they're trying to accomplish right now, and they've been knocking it out of the park. So I'm really glad to hear that this rendezvous, at least we think so far, has gone well with this object. We're going to have to wait to see what happens when the samples return, but then it's going to be moving on to another comet, a periodic. comet. Can you talk a little bit about the second target for this mission? Well, I can try. I mean, so the target for this is 311P, which is a main belt comet. And to be honest, I mean, I've been working over the last week or two to kind of get my head around camera or labor and all the different kind of theories of the origins of this and, you know,

what the operations for Tian 1-1-2 will be, you know, the next few weeks and going forward as they move towards sampling. So the comet's side of this, particularly because they're not going to be arriving until 2035, it's been very much at the back of my mind, right? So that's no disrespect to, you know, the comet scientists or anything like that. Yeah, it's just been a really busy period and been focused on the asteroid side of things.

So, yeah, I mean, the spacecraft's got 10 or 11 different, science payloads. So the cameras and LIDAR and Sinding Radar that I talked about before, it's got dust detectors as well, which will be working in interplanatory space as well. So they have some payloads which are more,

which would be kind of more useful for the comet side of this mission as well, as well as generally for both of these objects. But basically what we're going to see is when Tian 1-2 returns to Earth in November,

December 27. It will use its kind of rendezvous with Earth for a gravitational slingshot to send it on its path towards this comet. So it's going to be in deep space for eight years by itself after that. And yeah. So, you know, sounds kind of boring, but also it's it's verifying that China can do long-term deep space missions and builds towards even more ambitious missions in the future. I mean, that is one of the downsides of using ion thrusters, right? Like, you can get a good gravity assist off of Earth, but ion thrusters take a long time to kind of get you to a place. That can help you change your trajectory so you can go into orbit. But it makes sense it's going to take them a while to get out there to this object. They're not actually going to be trying to sample the comet, right? They're only doing the sampling on the asteroid side.

Well, they haven't said so. The way that they describe in the mission papers is that, you know, the goal. of that is to rendezvous with the comet and perform studies on this. So whether or not they, you know, if once they've done, you know, the global study of 311P, maybe if they want to experiment with the sampling, I mean, maybe, why not? So maybe you could learn things about the, you know, surface dynamics and everything like this by just messing around with those things. So maybe as an extended part of that mission we might see.

something like that. That would be interesting. I mean, we'll at least get the dust analyzed off of this object, but if they could return to sample, I mean, how would you return the second sample without the plan to return to Earth, right? You'd have to completely change the trajectory of the spacecraft. And then it would take just as long, almost, to get back to Earth, right? So that's a really long-term mission. Yeah, yeah. And then you would assume that they've used their reentry capsule as well. So unless you want to park it in an orbit and go up and fetch it, then then yeah, I mean, that's, yeah, exactly.

I mean, that's a lot of fuel. So, and this is still relatively a small spacecraft. So, yeah, I think those are beyond the realms of possibility, but certainly, yeah. I mean, China has certainly looked to get absolutely everything that they can out of every mission they do. So, yeah, I mean, maybe we see some surprises. I mean, for example, when we went back to Chandler 6, we knew quite a lot about the mission. They landed on the moon. They were doing the sampling.

and then suddenly the small rover turns up and, you know, takes a picture. It was like, huh, they got rover, right? And I think that that first turned up, I think that when we saw an actual picture of the, like, the launch stack, it was like, huh, what's that on the side? On the side there, right? So it's kind of like, just a surprise. So, yeah, and then with Tianwin, one, they, like, on the way to Mars, they just released this kind of Wi-Fi camera, which took these spectacular deep-spaced images, right?

So, yeah, surprises. There could always be surprises with these missions and lots of cameras as well. So hopefully we're going to see some great views of this asteroid and who knows what else that they managed to add in there too. See, that's an interesting thing. I've always wondered if it's because I live in the United States and there's not as many people who are reporting on these missions as you are, I've always wondered if the secret of nature of things going on with these missions is just like, I'm surprised as an. English speaker, that there was, say, the Zerong rover on Tian Wan, 1, or if that's something that people in China experience as well, if they are also surprised and delighted when these

things happen with their space missions? I mean, yeah, yeah, with the surprises in particular, I mean, it's a completely different kind of information environment which China operates in, right? So, I mean, Western missions, you're dealing with taxpayers, money, and there's a certain amount of transparency and kind of openness that has to, you know, you can't just like bolt on an additional part of a mission and go surprise, you know, you can't do that. But in China, I mean, it's the way that their kind of space and defense sector works. So it's a lot more secretive to reporting about it is they have embedded reporters from, you know, different kind of news and

media, but I mean, what they're able to report would maybe, you know, be a lot more controlled, you know. So, yeah, it's just very different, different kind of relationship with the public in terms of information and when it's released. If everything goes well with TN1-2, I'm sure we'll see lots of images and everything like this, but it's like only after they've made sure that everything's going well. Unless it's a really big mission with a live stream, with live coverage, we don't really get to see a picture of the rocket or the payload or anything like that until after mission success has been declared.

So that even happened with TN1-2. So I think the first image we saw of the spacecraft was like one of its solar arrays, which kind of looked like, I think it was the Lucy spacecraft. It kind of looked like that kind of circular ones. And we only got to see one of them. And then later on we got a picture of the, you know, from one of the engineering cameras showing the spacecraft when it was already on its way. So it's kind of, yeah, the way that they trickle that information is very different. But it will be really cool to get these images back. We've never seen anything this tiny, this close up before.

And especially if it isn't the same kind of asteroid like rubble pile that we're seeing with a lot of these other objects. Who even knows, this might be one of those classic asteroids that we imagined in science fiction, where it actually just looks like a solid surface. I don't know if I've seen that up close before. Yeah, it's just going to be fascinating. I can't wait. It's just really frustrating. Yeah, it's a few weeks and then waiting to know what's going to happen.

When will we actually get to see the images and the confirmation and everything like this? So, I mean, on one hand, it's kind of, you know, frustrating when you don't know what milestones can be covered in terms of planning to report things. But on the other hand, it kind of makes it more exciting and interesting to try and work on what's going on. So, you know. Yeah, we're going to have to figure out more about these. I mean, it's a very small population of quasi-south. satellites, but they're very interesting objects and maybe not as interesting for planetary defense necessarily, but who knows how many of these little quasi satellites are hiding out

all around the solar system in these interesting orbits, right? So it'll be a good thing to learn more about them. Yeah, absolutely. And it's kind of great that Cameroa Lava was discovered in 2016 and then 10 years later it's been visited. It's like, that's quite remarkable, right? So, yeah, just to think even a decade ago, these things were still, you know, in these quasi-moon orbits, but still not being detected. Yeah, it's fascinating.

Was the asteroid detected by Pan Stars like the comet was? Was it all part of the same survey? Yes, yeah, Pan Stars, yeah. And hence the Hawaiian name. Is there any international collaboration in the Tianwen II mission? Yes, there is. there's a payload from the Russian Academy of Sciences. I think it was the particle dust detector.

I think there was a payload from Italy as well, the name of which escapes me. But that was another kind of post-launch surprise. I think that was something that I personally missed. I think there was kind of evidence of it out there, but not very much, right? And it wasn't maybe in the main announcements from CNSA. But yeah, so there is international cooperation.

And also on the modeling side and the science side as well, you have Chinese teams who are working on kind of both ideas in terms of, you know, is this a chunk of the moon, is it an asteroid. So you have teams that, you know, instead of just, you know, it seems that they have like a competitive process in terms of, you know, the science and trying to work out what's going on. And they were also working quite openly with experts from around. world as well on these papers. So, I mean, the science side of it has been collaborative as well, which is good to see. Absolutely. And, you know, I had a similar situation when I was learning more about the DART mission, where I didn't know that Italy was involved.

And then Lichia Cube became a thing and took all those beautiful images of the impact. So again, Italy coming in strong on these asteroid missions. I really enjoy that. Yeah, yeah. That's going on. And then Herra, of course, which is turning up with the two cube sets as well, also. from Italy. Yeah, yeah. So that's another thing to be excited about. And then, of course, we've got Apophis approaching in three years. So some of the things going on with these,

you know, comets and asteroids and planetary defense. It's an exciting time. Well, it makes me feel very relieved. When I was a young person, I was convinced we were going to go the way of the dinosaurs because we weren't paying enough attention to these objects. And now we've got samples back from multiple small bodies. We've got a mission like this that's visiting multiple small bodies. Like, we're going to learn so much more. And maybe it is really future thinking, but what if in our lifetimes we see something like asteroid mining? I mean, it's not inconceivable, right? Especially after what we're going to be learning about psyche. There are so many cool small bodies out there. Yeah, it's fascinating. So, yeah, just, yeah, my inner child who was, you know,

kind of had his mind blown by images of, you know, just the planets. I mean, and now getting to see, close-ups of these small worlds and everything like this. It's brilliant. Yeah, and this is really ambitious. We've seen some space agencies. I think the UAE is the one I'm thinking of that has an upcoming mission they're planning that wants to go to multiple bodies. I think it's like seven separate asteroids.

But no one has attempted to try to go by all these different objects and attempt a sample at the same time. So if they can pull this off and then make it all the way out to 311P, hand stars, that it's going to be great. So I'm just going to be sitting here waiting for the first images to come back. Around what time should we expect these pictures to start flowing in? The indications are that the kind of the approach phase will be completed on July 4th. So that should be 20 kilometer altitude. So maybe we see something before then, but that would be kind of a mission milestone which would match, it would match the timing for an official and

announcement and some images. So, yeah, maybe we see something as it gets closer. I think we're still too far away if we are as expected about a couple thousand kilometers away. But as we get closer, as we hit some of those milestones, then, yeah, I think July 4 is a good date to look for. Only just a few days after asteroid day. So we've got a lot of asteroid stuff to look forward to in the coming weeks and months,

honestly. And years, you brought up what's going to be happening with Apophis. I feel like this is going to be a theme. that we're going to be touching on a lot over the next few years as we learn more about this. Yeah, it's a fascinating time to be witnessing all of this. Well, thank you so much for joining us on the show to talk about this. There are so many amazing missions coming out of China that I want to celebrate and am really excited that we can talk about this one as it's happening

because I love asteroid sampling missions. This is so cool. Yeah, there's so much going on. So I'm always happy when people are paying attention to what's going on. And the advances that China's space program is made in terms of capabilities and kind of ambition over the last decade, it's staggering. And thankfully, we'll be able to look to you when we can to see some of these missions coming out and read your articles. It's wonderful to speak with you for the first time after reading your work for so long. And I really appreciate you coming on the show to share about this mission so we can all celebrate it together.

Yeah, thanks very much for having me. It's always happy to talk. And thank you for a great job that you've done with the show. Coming up next, I'm joined by Dr. Bruce Betts, chief scientist of the Planetary Society for What's Up. We're going to be taking a look at some of the most exciting asteroid missions and moments on the horizon through the end of the decade. Hey, Bruce. Hello, Sarah.

Hello. So... Talking asteroids? Talking asteroids. Happy early asteroid day. Happy early asteroid day. Well, by the time people listen to this, it will be approximately six days. It's a happy with our question.

It's important because it raises awareness of the asteroid threat. So I've just never figured out if happy is we want it. If we do our homework, it'll be happy. That's fair, honestly. I like to think of it as not just like a doom and gloom day of asteroids may be killing us, but more so a celebration of our understanding of them. It's on the anniversary of the Tenghiska impact. I mean, that's fair.

But to our knowledge, no humans were killed, although a whole forest was flattened. So I do think about all those poor animals living in that forest. That's terrifying. Yeah, it's kind of, yeah. I mean, yeah. But yeah, I mean, you know, Asteroid Day is a cool moment to think about all the things that we've learned about asteroids. But right now, honestly, is like the coolest period for asteroid understanding in the history of humankind. because we've locked down most of the world destroying ones.

We've seen so many of them out there. It's mostly like the smaller city killer size asteroids that we haven't all detected yet. You say that in passing. City killer. I know, right? But I mean, this is why we're doing this kind of science, right? Tengeska would have, the area flattened was 50% larger than the city of Los Angeles. Right.

So I just throwing out random space facts. Just throwing things out there. But also, you know, like we have seen growing concern from people over the last few months as like we've seen more and more fireballs come down to Earth. And a lot of that is just the fact that people have cameras everywhere. So now we're being able to see these things and record them and put them online, right? But I think that now is a unique time. People are a little more aware of the asteroid threat, really. Fireballs are fine.

As long as they don't land or hurt anyone. But I mean, Chellabinsk, that was terrifying. Yeah, no, that was beyond fine. I don't know. Yeah, definitely. But, you know, we've got all of these asteroid moments coming up. Like, we just talked about what happened with Tianwen, too. Next month, we've got Hayabusa two making a rendezvous. And then from there to the end of 2029, there's just a bunch of asteroid stuff happening. So we don't need to name everyone. But I would love to give people like a little timeline of what we can look forward to. All right. Well, as you say,

in less than a month, Hayibusa 2, still out there doing stuff. It dropped up at samples, but it's still flying around. It'll go visit Torafune. How'd I do? That's good.

You know this. Okay, the Japanese pronunciation, Sarah's the expert. So that'll be cool. And they plan on getting within one, I guess, within 10 kilometers. It sounds like a pretty close flyby.

So that should be groovy. And then we've got in November, Hera, from the European Space Agency, reaches didomos and dimorphus, which is what DART slammed into a few years back to demonstrate that we could change the orbit of an asteroid. And they'll be able to actually go and look at the crater and do measurements of how things have changed and get the details that allows us to better understand the process of so-called kinetic impactors when you slam a spacecraft into an asteroid to change its orbit. But wait, don't order yet. We've got Lucy, which is just a crazy going all over the place. It's already done some asteroids in the main belt, but it's doing four Jupiter-Trojan asteroids in 27.

And most of that's in 27 and 28. That's 20, 27, 28. That's neat because that'll be our first Trojan asteroids. They're ones that orbit 60 degrees or 60-degree ahead or behind Jupiter in its orbit and stable. Lagrange points are sort of stable L4L5, and it'll visit one of those places during the next few years. And then it comes, then after that, this is just so weird, they fly back from Jupiter by Earth and then go to the other camp of Trojan asteroids later on.

Yeah, that is weird. Clever. Tianwen, too, which I said, I guess you were just talking about is that we said, We'll do a sample return drop from the weird little quasi-satellite beast that I guess you discuss hanging out. And we'll get to figure out what more about it and where it came from, what its story is, what it likes to do and for fun. And Neo-surveyor, now, we've been having planetary defense conferences since the early, the beginning of the 2000s. More than 25 years since the beginning, everyone wanted this as the top priority thing, and not necessarily the specifics of the mission,

but the concept of a space telescope dedicated, infrared space telescope, inwards of Earth's orbit dedicated to finding asteroids, because then you lose fewer in the sun. You have a wider field of view. You can use infrared more effectively above the atmosphere, the thermal infrared, and see even dark asteroids, because you're actually measuring their temperature. You can also measure their brightness.

You can get a better idea of their mass. It's just good stuff. And the community of people who worry and think about asteroid threat and asteroid science have won this forever. So I am so excited about that. The UAE doing planetary again, hoping to do six main build asteroid flybys starting. They launch in 28,

and then they go out there and party around for a while. Apophis, this is the big deal. Yeah, depending on how you define its Egyptian god purview, Apophis, the destroyer, god of chaos. It'll pass inside our geostationary orbit, satellite orbits, 32,000 kilometers from Earth. It will not hit, but it is a three-football field long asteroid. So it will be actually visible to the naked eye. It'll just appear like a star moving across the sky. But that star is this pretty big asteroid that was concerning when it was first discovered

because we were still in the uncertainty of the target zone, but we're very much not now. And so it's just a real reminder that that is the kind of thing that can ruin a lot of people's day and really screw up countries, economies. It would be, the word is bad. It would be bad if that hit. So learning more about it. We got Osir's Apex. We'll pick it up after it flies by.

That's the Osiris Rex spacecraft. The Lachyboza, too, dropped off its samples and now doing more science. East European Space Agency is building Ramseys to actually get there before it flies by. The University of Maryland is a student group is trying to do a, if they can pull things together. They'll have a small spacecraft flying by. And finally, just before all this performance, 2030, and it's 2026, August

of 20209, NASA's Psyche mission arrives at Psyche. A metal asteroid, which I'm very excited about that might, may or may not be the exposed

core of an early planet. And so that's a new weird place we'll be looking at that could be super weird and groovy or may look like something else. But science-wise, it's good. all good stuff. It's good stuff. Sorry, I went on so long, but I'm so excited

about it, Sarah. Even I'm excited about this. I mean, it's amazing. There's so many missions back to back to back plan for the next few years. At least from what we've seen from sample returns and other missions that have gone out to these objects over the last

decade or more, each one of them returns stuff that we've never, we didn't even imagine would be there, right? What the chemical composition is, or or just the weird shapes of these asteroids, or the fact that some of them are rubble piles versus mostly solid. Like, there is so much that we have learned.

And it's the prime example of like, well, what do we think we're going to find when we go there? We don't know. That's why we're doing it. You know, it's beautiful. Yep, it's a wonderful thing. And weird thing throughout the solar system. Every time we go anywhere, we usually come away going, wow, didn't see that coming. Hopefully we don't do that with an asteroid.

Fingers crossed. But if anybody is interested on actual asteroid day, which is June 30th, I'm going to be going on Twitch with Moo Hoodles, which you probably heard from on the past on the show. We're going to be doing a whole show with Casey Dreyer and me and her, and we're going to be talking about all things, Asteroid Day, and about all of these missions. So if anybody wants to learn a little more and hang out with us, we'll be doing that. So come say hi. Well, that will be a happy asteroid day for you.

Right? I'm going to make it happy. if it's about something terrifying. But it's the one giant natural disaster that we actually, if we keep doing our work, eventually we'll be able to prevent when one of these comes because there is a 100% chance that a dangerous asteroid will cause humanity, destruction of parts of humanity unless we do something. We don't know whether it's tomorrow.

It's not very likely. or 100 years from now or a thousand years from now. But it will happen. But it doesn't have to because we're cool and we'll develop cool stuff. Mostly Sarah. And it'll be great. We'll send Sarah to space. She'll punch it in the face for the dinosaurs.

Wow. Remind me not to cross you. Speaking of which. Rad space fact. Mariner 10. Mariner 10 was the first spacecraft to encounter. two planets besides Earth, flying by Mercury after it flew by Venus and gave us our first and only views of spacecraft views of Mercury for a few decades until Messenger got there. And it did it in

the early 1970s. Of course, there have been many that have been doing that now that were masters of gravity assists and the like, but that was the first time they partied with that at two different worlds besides Earth or the Moon. I'm so looking forward to Beppy Colombo, like, getting into its mission around Mercury and learning more about that because, I mean, this is another example of a world that we just, like, need more missions to explore. It's true. And I spent much of much time wondering what that other half looked like because we didn't

know. And Messenger told us and then others, and then Beppy Colombo is going to do some great science. and both Beppy and Colombo. I'm just kidding. That was the name of a person, but there are two. It will break into two spacecraft with the Japanese-led one and the European-led one. So much good stuff.

Yay. Yay. All right, everybody, go out there, look up the night sky, and think about what you're looking forward to today, possibly involving ice cream. Thank you. And good night. We've reached the end of this week's episode of Planetary Radio,

but we'll be back next week with more space science and exploration. If you love the show, you can get planetary radio t-shirts at planetary.org slash shop, along with lots of other cool spacey merchandise. Help others discover the passion, beauty, and joy of space science and exploration by leaving a review or a rating on platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Your feedback not only brightens our day, but helps other curious minds find their place in space through planetary radio. You can also send us your space thoughts, quote,

and poetry at our email. Planetary Radio at planetary.org. Or if you're a planetary society member, leave a comment in the planetary radio space in our online member community. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, and is made possible by our members. You can join us at planetary.org slash join. Mark Hilverda and Ray Paletta are our associate producers. Casey Dreyer is the host of our monthly space policy edition and Matt Kaplan hosts our monthly book club edition. Andrew Lucas is our audio editor. Josh Doyle composed our theme,

which is arranged and performed by Peter Schlosser. My name is Sarah Al Ahmed, the host and producer of Planetary Radio. And until next week, Ad Astra.