China Launches Tianwen-2 Mission to Capture Pieces of Near-Earth Asteroid

China has a space station and, in just a few short years, has landed robots on the moon and Mars. This week the country’s space agency is targeting new, far-flung destinations and setting off for an asteroid that could contain secrets that explain how Earth and the moon formed.

The country’s Tianwen-2 spacecraft is lifted off aboard a Long March 3B rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China on Thursday around 1:31 a.m. local time, according to state media. (it was still Wednesday in New York).

After about a year, the robotic mission will arrive at 469219 Kamoʻoalewa, a near-Earth asteroid. There, it will perilously try to scoop up some rocky matter, and then swing back around to Earth. A capsule filled with geologic treasure would then plunge toward the planet for retrieval by scientists in late 2027.

If Tianwen-2 pulls this off, China will become the third nation — after Japan and the United States — to retrieve pristine material from an asteroid.

“All Chinese planetary scientists are now finger-crossed for this historic mission,” said Yuqi Qian, a lunar geologist at the University of Hong Kong.

The spacecraft also has a secondary target, an unusual comet that it could study as part of an extended mission.