That is a reason why Tianwen-2's Roundttrip Journey to Asteroid Kamoʻoalewa will only last two and a half years. The Japanese Hayabusa 2 Asteroid Sample Return Mission lasted six years after the launch through the return to Earth, while NASA's Osiris-Rex mission made the journey to an asteroid in seven years. Both visited nearly-earth asteroids further away than Kamoʻoalewa, where Tianwen-2 arrives in July 2026 and is looking for a location to pick up monsters.
Tianwen-2 will try to collect samples in various ways. One method includes maneuvering the spacecraft close to the surface and matching the rotation of the asteroid and expanding a robot arm to collect specimens. The spacecraft will also descend to the surface of the asteroids for a “touch-and-go” similar to the way in which the Japanese Hayabusa 2-space vessels and Nasa's Osiris-Rex sampled their asteroids.
Scientists also hope to try another sampling method that is known as “anchor-and-attache”, whereby the spacecraft will protect itself on the surface of the asteroids with four arms with drills at their ends. Chinese officials did not say how much material they hope to bring back to Earth, but Tianwen-2 is reportedly designed to collect at least 100 grams of rocks and dust from the asteroid.
Mission planners know little about the form of kamoʻoalewa, but long -distance measurements suggest that it is running once every 28 minutes, relatively fast for an asteroid. This spider speed, in combination with the thin gravity of the object, will make the maneuvers of Tianwen-2 more difficult at the asteroid.
As soon as it has the samples in hand, Tianwen-2 will release the asteroid at the beginning of 2027 and head to the earth, where it will release a return module with pieces of kamoʻoalewa for landing in the end of 2027. Researchers will study the specimens to their fundamental compositions, and isotopic, and Isotopic, and Isotopic, and Isotopic, and Isotopic, and Isotopic, and Isotopic, and Isotopic, and Isotopic, and Isotopic, and Isotopic, and Isotopic, and Isotopian, and Isotopic, and Isotopic, and Isotopic, and Isotopic, and Isotopic, and Isotopic, and Isotopic, and Isotopic, and Isotopic, and Isotopianale, and Isotopiane Structures, and structures, and structures, and structures, and structures, and structures, and structures, and structures, and structures, and structures, and structures, and structures, and the published house journals and structures, and structures, is published according to a paper. Earth and planetary physics.
In the paper, four Chinese scientists write that the results of the sample efficiency will not only improve the knowledge of asteroids, but can also tell us about the earth and the moon.
“The confirmation of the origin of Kamo'oalewa, from the prevailing origin as a rubble of the moon, could be a promising start to distract the evolutionary history of the moon,” the scientists write in the magazine. “This history would probably include a more extensive image of the moon far away and the origin of the asymmetry between the two sides of the moon.”
