China's Chang'e-2 Flyby of Asteroid Toutatis

1. Interesting that 99.9 percent of the world media and space pundits had no idea whatsoever the Chinese probe had been retargeted for this “thread-the-needle”  flyby of Toutatis. China somehow kept this very very quiet, and revealed it only when they had their asteroid in the bag. This was a very impressive achievment, and the Chinese deserve kudos.  Did anyone outside CHina know this was happening or report on same? I’m not aware of any advance heads up.

   That’s twice this week we have been caught offguard by the achievments of Asian astronautics  ( make of the North Korean launch what you will…it went off when nobody was expecting it, and the booster worked, even if the satellite  it carried went ga-ga ).

   Who’s next ?

   1. It was well understood that Chang’e-2 was being redirected to Earth-Sun L2, but yes, the targeting of Toutatis was a surprise to most. It’s understood that going to Earth-Sun L2 exercises capabilities in deep space nav and precision control, and one could say that the rendezvous with Toutatis builds strongly upon that. Lagrange points will be important destinations in cis-lunar space, and the Chinese are wise to exercise these capabilities.

      1. Amen, a very impressive feat of navigation and it would be interesting to see the trajectory and if they used the L2 portal as a means to reduce the delta-v requirements.

   2. The mission — even the date of the encounter — were revealed in a few news reports and science papers, and several discussion groups [such as unmannedspaceflight.com and Emily Lakdawalla’s blog] were following it, but the last few months saw a Beijing media blackout that probably indicated a concern it was ‘an asteroid too far’. It was, after all, the SECOND re-targeting of the original mission, way, wa-a-a-ay beyond all design specs. But the navigation, camera targeting, and comm strategy were magnificent!

2. Make that five – the USSR flew VEGA past Halley’s Comet back in the 1980s.

   1.  They did say asteroid, but yeah, good enough for me.

3. It’s fun to compare these images with the recent radar images.

4. It’s one of those things we won’t know about.

   If the air force has the ability to keep track of the locations of objects beyond GEO, it won’t announce to anyone that it knew. (Remember that this is not some passive fragment of space junk – this is an active functioning spacecraft. It transmits back to earth, for example.  It has large solar panels.)

   1. This does not change it will not make any new headlines. They have not very much delta-v left.

      1. I meant we won’t know if the Air Force was surprised by what had happened….     

   2. Sorry you didn’t know about it and figured everyone else was equally ignorant. Next time, look around more carefully, such as the blogs at the Planetary Society [why did you choose NOT to even look there?]. Your fantasy about USAF spacetrack capability and policy is equally off base. As Will Rogers said, “It ain’t what you don’t know what makes you look like a fool, it’s what you DO know what ain’t so.”  Was he thinking of you?

      1. You are really full of yourself, now aren’t you, Jim?  No more name calling and Diva behavior on NASAWatch. You have been warned about this before.

5. Very impressive.  Might they next demonstrate blowing up a small asteroid with a nuke? 

6. More evidence that the Chinese are picking up the pace and we are in clear danger of being left in the cosmic dust.  Also recall that the Chinese Space Program is run by the semi-autonomous military.  Maybe even the Chinese leadership were surprised.

   1. In “clear danger” of being left in the cosmic dust?  Have you paid attention to the missions the US has going on around the solar system?  More importantly, the path to future exploration does not lie upon a racetrack. 

      1. I have to disagree. It is critically important to the future of humanity on earth whether it should be an open society or an authoritarian one that first achieves human settlement on an extraterrestrial body. I too laud the recent accomplishments of the Chinese scientists, engineers, and ‘taikonauts’, which have been marvelous. But the regime which uses these successes to legitimize itself and inflate its global prestige is still a dangerous enemy of freedom, and the west would be foolish to simply cede any such opportunity for national prestige to them without putting up our best competition. Let the world systems compete by way of great achievements, rather than by war; this is good for peace, but it is also vital that our side win.

         1. I’m with you on this Stern. 

         2. I’m sorry I don’t buy an argument based on political fear.  There are many good reason for going to space, but one of these reasons  is jut because is response to unfounded paranoia.

         3. It’s critically important to the future of humanity that we avoid nuclear war. Collaboration in space will help us toward that goal. The US obviously cannot afford a race to Mars, unless you are willing to pay higher taxes to do it, which even space enthusiasts are not willing to do. To race China, we would have to borrow the money from China. The real competition for world influence between the US and China is economic, not geopolitical. The moon race was a reasonable strategy for its time. But times have changed.

7. Congrats to the Chinese team, an impressive feat!

8. To succeed in space we have to get beyond the silly games of “who can spend $100B to land on the moon first”. What sort of relationship do we want among the world powers? Are we looking for a new nuclear standoff, a kid’s game of who can race to the moon first, or an era of trust and cooperation between the world powers? If the latter is our goal (as I certainly think it should be) what should we do in space to promote it? Inviting China to join the ISS program would be a reasonable start.

9. “Hat’s off” to China for such an amazing accomplishment.

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