China's space agenda includes asteroids, a rival to Hubble, and a Moonbase

The country hopes to launch a robotic craft to an asteroid and two lunar missions over the next five years.

China has had a successful few years in space exploration, and its ambitions are set to grow even higher. The China National Space Administration has released a five-year plan that includes launching a robotic art to an asteroid, building a space telescope to rival the Hubble Space Telescope, and laying the groundwork for a space-dependgravitational-wave detector. 

The missions were stressed in a white paper released last month titled 'China's Space Program: A 2021 Perspective.' 

According to Shuang-Nan Zhang, an astronomer at the Institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing, the plans continue the country's trend of emphasizing missions with science at their core rather than technology development and applications. "This is a great sign," he says. "There is a steady increase in investment in Universe exploration."

Nature examines five of the most audacious projects.

China intends to launch asteroid probes to collect samples from near-Earth asteroids and study icy comets with asteroid-like orbits. The mission, which is likely to be named ZhengHe after a Ming-dynasty Chinese explorer, will be the country's 1st to visit an asteroid and launch as early as 2024.

Zheng He will fly for ten years, first landing on the ancient asteroid HO3 or Kamo'oalewa, orbits Earth as a quasi-satellite (see Earth's Pet Rock). Scientists hope that studying it will provide them with information about the early Solar System.

According to a correspondence1 published in Nature Astronomy last year, ZhengHe will anchor itself to the asteroid before scooping up its sample. Then, in 2026, ZhengHe will return to Earth's orbit to drop off its spoils, which will parachute to the ground. After that, the craft will slingshot around Earth and Mars before heading to comet 311P/PANSTARRS in deep space.