China Tianwen-2 begins close encounter with quasi-moon Kamooalewa, asteroid sample collection July 2026
China's Tianwen-2 probe is closing in on Kamooalewa, a small asteroid that travels alongside Earth as a quasi-moon. Its close encounter begins July 4 at a range of about 20 km, and it aims to collect 200 to 1,000 grams of material this July, China's first asteroid sample return.
China's first asteroid sample-return mission is about to reach its most delicate phase. The China National Space Administration says its Tianwen-2 spacecraft, which rendezvoused with the small near-Earth asteroid Kamooalewa in early June, will begin its close encounter on July 4, approaching to within roughly 20 kilometers. Over the following weeks the probe is expected to attempt to collect between 200 and 1,000 grams of surface material, using two techniques: a touch-and-go pass and an anchor-and-attach method that would let it hold onto the asteroid while gathering a sample. Kamooalewa is unusual. It is a quasi-moon, an object that orbits the Sun but stays close enough to Earth to appear as a companion, and its origin is debated, with some research suggesting it may be a fragment blasted off the Moon. The sample capsule is scheduled to return to Earth around November 2027, targeting a landing site near the Jiuquan launch center. If it succeeds, China would become the third country, after Japan and the United States, to bring pristine asteroid material back to Earth. That matters because untouched asteroid samples preserve chemistry from the earliest days of the solar system that is altered or destroyed in meteorites by the time they reach the ground. After the sample return, Tianwen-2 is set to continue on to the asteroid belt to study the comet-like object 311P/PanSTARRS. According to the China National Space Administration.