China plans to launch an uncrewed probe around 2025 to collect samples from a near-Earth asteroid and explore a comet, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Monday, citing a senior space expert.
The chief goal of the Tianwen-2 mission is to send a probe to the asteroid 2016HO3 to retrieve samples, said Zhang Rongqiao, chief designer of China's planetary exploration program and of the Tianwen-2 mission.
"If successful, it would be China's first samples collected from interplanetary space," Zhang said, adding that a spacecraft will be sent to fly around and then land on the asteroid to collect the samples.
