{"id":48151,"date":"2025-05-25T16:15:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-25T10:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=48151"},"modified":"2025-05-29T16:30:35","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T11:00:35","slug":"tianwen-2-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/tianwen-2-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"Tianwen-2 Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Tianwen-2 Mission Latest News<\/h2>\n<p>China is set to launch its Tianwen-2 mission, which aims to survey and sample the near-Earth asteroid 469219 Kamo\u2018oalewa.<\/p>\n<h2>About Tianwen-2 Mission<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Launch Vehicle<\/strong>:\u00a0<strong>Long March 3B rocket<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Launch Site<\/strong>: Xichang Satellite Launch Centre, Sichuan Province, China.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Agency<\/strong>:\u00a0<strong>China National Space Administration (CNSA)<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Objective<\/strong>: Survey and\u00a0<strong>sample asteroid Kamo\u2019oalewa<\/strong>, then travel to the asteroid belt to study\u00a0<strong>comet 311P\/PANSTARRS<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What is Asteroid Kamo\u2018oalewa?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Kamo\u2018oalewa is a near-Earth asteroid<\/strong>\u00a0discovered in\u00a0<strong>2016<\/strong>\u00a0by the\u00a0<strong>Pan-STARRS 1 telescope<\/strong>\u00a0on\u00a0<strong>Haleakal\u0101, Hawaii<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>It belongs to a rare class called\u00a0<strong>quasi-satellites of Earth<\/strong>, which\u00a0<strong>orbit the Sun<\/strong>, but remain\u00a0<strong>gravitationally influenced by Earth<\/strong>\u00a0due to their close proximity.<\/li>\n<li>It\u00a0<strong>follows a highly elliptical solar orbit<\/strong>\u00a0and appears to\u00a0<strong>alternate between leading and trailing Earth<\/strong>, giving the illusion of orbiting Earth.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Kamo\u2018oalewa has been in its current orbit for ~100 years<\/strong>, and is expected to stay for another\u00a0<strong>300 years<\/strong>, though quasi-satellite orbits are inherently unstable over long timescales.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Tianwen-2\u2019s Sampling Strategy<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Tianwen-2 will use the\u00a0<strong>\u201ctouch-and-go\u201d technique<\/strong>\u00a0to collect samples \u2014 a method also used by NASA\u2019s\u00a0<strong>OSIRIS-Rex<\/strong>\u00a0and Japan\u2019s\u00a0<strong>Hayabusa2<\/strong>\u00a0missions.<\/li>\n<li>In this method, the spacecraft\u00a0<strong>briefly hovers over the asteroid\u2019s surface<\/strong>, where a robotic arm\u00a0<strong>releases a projectile or gas burst<\/strong>\u00a0to\u00a0<strong>dislodge particles<\/strong>, which are captured in a chamber.<\/li>\n<li>A backup\u00a0<strong>\u201canchor-and-attach\u201d method<\/strong>\u00a0may be used, where\u00a0<strong>four robotic arms drill into the surface to retrieve subsurface material<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>About Tianwen Series<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The\u00a0<strong>Tianwen series<\/strong>\u00a0(meaning\u00a0<strong>\u201cHeavenly Questions\u201d<\/strong>, inspired by the classical Chinese poem by\u00a0<strong>Qu Yuan<\/strong>) represents China&#8217;s growing ambitions in\u00a0<strong>deep space exploration<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tianwen-1<\/strong>, launched in 2020, became China\u2019s\u00a0<strong>first successful Mars mission<\/strong>, delivering an\u00a0<strong>orbiter, lander, and rover<\/strong>\u00a0to the Martian surface. The\u00a0<strong>rover ceased operation in 2022<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tianwen-3<\/strong>, expected by\u00a0<strong>2028<\/strong>, aims to\u00a0<strong>retrieve samples from Mars<\/strong>, placing China among the few nations planning\u00a0<strong>interplanetary sample return<\/strong>\u00a0missions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Tianwen-2 Mission FAQs<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Q1.\u00a0<\/strong>What is the Tianwen-2 Mission?<br \/>\n<strong>Ans:<\/strong>\u00a0Tianwen-2 is China\u2019s planned asteroid sample-return mission, aimed at collecting samples from a near-Earth asteroid and studying it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q2.\u00a0<\/strong>Who is conducting the Tianwen-2 Mission?<br \/>\n<strong>Ans:<\/strong>\u00a0The mission is being led by the China National Space Administration (CNSA).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q3.\u00a0<\/strong>What is the target asteroid for Tianwen-2?<br \/>\n<strong>Ans:<\/strong>\u00a0Tianwen-2 is expected to target the asteroid 2016 HO3, a quasi-satellite of Earth.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-sci-tech\/china-tianwen-2-mission-10026270\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">IE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tianwen-2 is China\u2019s planned asteroid sample-return mission, aimed at collecting samples from a near-Earth asteroid and studying it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":48153,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,555,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-48151","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-prelims-pointers","9":"tag-tianwen-2-mission","10":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","11":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}