How 23 giant Chinese rockets could save the world from ‘doomsday’ asteroid

Name: China successfully launches Shenzhou-12 manned space station mission
Uploaded: 2021-07-05T19:00:28.000Z
Duration: 1 min 20 s
Description: China successfully launches Shenzhou-12 manned space station mission

China can send mammoth machines into space which travel for years then deflect problematic rocks

Same devices have been criticised recently because one plummeted back to Earth in uncontrolled re-entry

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The so-called Assembled Kinetic Impactor within China’s Long March 5 (CZ-5) rocket. The country hopes this device, on more than 20 rockets, will deflect potentially lethal asteroids and avoid devastation on Earth. Photo: Handout.

Stephen Chen

Published: 3:00am, 6 Jul 2021Updated: 6:23pm, 6 Jul 2021

China’s space programme could one day save the world, with massive rockets travelling for years to defend the planet from huge asteroids capable of wiping out entire cities, according to a government-backed study.

This saviour role is unexpected given these are the same machines seen as a threat by many, including the United States, just weeks ago; the main 20-tonne section from one such rocket fell back to Earth in May in an uncontrolled re-entry. It fell into the sea or burned up beforehand, although last year fragments from another rocket were said to have hit two villages in the West African country, Ivory Coast.

Now a new government-funded study says China can launch 23 Long March 5 (CZ-5) rockets – the largest in its fleet, weighing almost 900 tonnes on take-off – to break up the rocky objects in our solar system. Some asteroids are as small as pebbles but others are hundreds of kilometres across. An asteroid about 500 metres (1,640 feet) wide could kill millions.

Although the chance of one colliding with the Earth is currently low, there is one called Bennu which could hit in about a century. Researcher Li Mingtao and his colleagues at the National Space Science Centre in Beijing have been commissioned to find out how China can step in and try to ensure humans do not go the way of the dinosaurs. The asteroid that led to their extinction was around 10km (6 miles) wide.

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China successfully launches Shenzhou-12 manned space station mission

To change the course of a giant asteroid hurtling towards us at terrifying speeds, a lot of kinetic energy would be needed. Nuclear weapons might do the job but such a blast could break the target into several threatening chunks.

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