Chinese scientists propose to explore the asteroid Apophis using a swarm of CubeSats. This will allow them to obtain maximum data about this celestial body.
The asteroid Apophis has a diameter of 340 meters. On April 13, 2029, it will make a close flyby of Earth, passing at a distance of 32,000 km from its surface (i.e., inside the orbits of geostationary satellites). At that moment, the asteroid will be visible to the naked eye in most of Europe and Africa, as well as in some parts of Asia. The meeting with Earth is expected to affect the asteroid and cause landslides and shifts on it.
According to scientists’ estimates, such large objects approach Earth on average once every 5,000 to 10,000 years. It is not surprising that Apophis’ visit has attracted increased attention, and a number of countries and space agencies are considering options for sending missions to it. Thus, ESA plans to send the Ramses spacecraft accompanied by several CubeSats. NASA has bet on the OSIRIS-APEX mission, which previously studied the asteroid Bennu, and is also considering sending a pair of Janus probes to it (however, all these projects may be canceled if the current NASA budget is approved). The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is considering including Apophis’ flyby in the DESTINY+ mission program, which targets the asteroid Phaethon.
China is not going to stay aside from these processes either. Recently, scientists from a number of Chinese scientific institutions have proposed sending their own mission to Apophis. The idea is to explore it using a swarm of CubeSats. They can be launched both together and separately as secondary payloads.
According to the authors of the idea, the CubeSats will be able to carry various instruments and measure the mass of the asteroid, study the morphology of its surface, rotation, and internal structure. They will also conduct multispectral imaging of Apophis and assess the parameters of its gravitational field. All this data will significantly improve our understanding of the structure of such bodies. In the future, they may become the basis for strategies to protect our planet from dangerous space objects.
China has not yet approved the Apophis mission project. However, given the significant scientific interest and considerations of national prestige, it can be assumed that it will most likely be approved.
According to Spacenews
