China readies high‑speed test to strike near‑Earth asteroid

China’s space agency CNSA is developing a kinetic‑impact mission aimed at the near‑Earth asteroid 2015 XF261, a roughly 30‑metre rock that passes close to Earth. The plan involves launching two spacecraft: an impactor that will collide with the asteroid at about 9 km s⁻¹ (over 32 000 km h⁻¹) and a nearby observer that will record data before, during and after the impact. The experiment is intended to assess whether such a collision can alter the asteroid’s orbit, fragment the body and reveal details of its interior composition. The effort follows NASA’s 2022 DART mission, which successfully changed the orbit of Dimorphos by a kinetic impact, and seeks to demonstrate capability against a solitary asteroid rather than a binary system.