Active · Active
China's active Tianwen-2 mission launched on 29 May 2025 from Xichang on a Long March 3B Y110. It has begun scientific exploration of asteroid 2016 HO3; the mission plans to return an asteroid sample to Earth before continuing to main-belt comet 311P.
- Destinations
- Launch vehicle
- Long March-3B Y110 rocket
- Launch site
- Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province
- Countries
- Peoples Republic of China
- Mission types
- Sample return
Chronology
Mission timeline
Launch
Launched on Long March 3B Y110 from Xichang Satellite Launch Center
Launch began at 01:31 on May 29, 2025 Beijing time, which is 2025-05-28T17:31Z; the catalog launch date uses the local date and this event stores the UTC epoch.
EarthMilestone
Performed approach control about 30,000 km from asteroid 2016 HO3
CNSA reports a capture-control action and coplanar flight at about 30,000 km from the asteroid. The day is published without a UTC clock or direction to the asteroid.
2016 HO3Milestone
Approached to about 2,000 km from asteroid 2016 HO3
CNSA reports an approximate asteroid range on this day without a UTC clock or relative direction.
2016 HO3
Mission architecture
Vehicles
Trajectory record
Trajectory dataset not yet available
Known dates and encounters do not uniquely determine a flight path. This mission’s sourced timeline is available above; no verified trajectory is currently published here.
What is needed to reconstruct this path?
- CNSA reports approximately 43 million km from Earth and 45 million km from asteroid 2016 HO3 as current in its 1 October 2025 release; it does not give observation clocks, relative directions or formal range errors.
- CNSA gives approximate spacecraft-to-asteroid ranges on June 7, June 19 and July 2, 2026, each at day precision without a relative direction or state velocity.
- The June 7 capture-control action and earlier deep-space corrections lack maneuver clocks and vectors.
- A time-tagged, frame-qualified spacecraft state or sufficient optical/radiometric observations are needed to reconstruct the transfer and close approach; the published asteroid ephemeris alone is not the spacecraft state.
- The reentry capsule remains planned to separate later and has no independently observed trajectory.
Provenance
Sources
Each source is listed once and labeled with the mission, event, trajectory, or destination/body context it supports.
Data verified through October 12, 2026
- Tianwen-2 Mission Launch Succeeds, Beginning China's Asteroid Exploration and Sample-Return Journey — CNSAMission page · Supports: mission claims · destination/body context · event claims
- Tianwen-2 Probe Reaches Its Target Asteroid and Begins Scientific Exploration — CNSAMission page · Supports: mission claims · destination/body context · event claims
- GCAT: General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects (auxiliary catalog), J. McDowell — OTHEROther · Supports: mission claims
- China to Launch Tianwen-2 Probe for Asteroid Sampling on May 29 — Xinhua — OTHEROther · Supports: mission claims
- China launches Tianwen-2 to retrieve asteroid samples — Xinhua — OTHEROther · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- Planet Sizes and Locations in Our Solar System — NASAOther · Supports: destination/body context
- Tianwen-2 Probe Arrives at Launch Site — CNSAMission page · Supports: destination/body context