China has started construction of a new radar system equipped with
high-definition deep-space active observation facility in a move to better
safeguard Earth. The new system will also boost the country's defense
capabilities against near-Earth asteroids as well as its sensing capability
for the Earth-moon system.
Located in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, the new observation
facility is codenamed "China Fuyan," which means "facetted eye" in English.
According to Long Teng, president of the Beijing Institute of Technology
(BIT), the research team gave it that vivid name because the radar system
comprises multiple antennas, just like facetted eyes of insects.
The Fuyan will comprise distributed radars with over 20 antennas, with each
having a diameter of 25 to 30 meters. It is expected to carry out
high-definition observation of asteroids within 150 million kilometers of
Earth, becoming the world's most far-reaching radar system.
Long, also a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that the
system will fill the gaps in the country's near-Earth defense and
space-sensing capabilities as well as frontier studies on Earth habitability
and the formation of asteroids.
The BIT's innovation center in Chongqing, China's National Astronomical
Observatories under the China Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University and
Peking University will also join the Fuyan's construction process.
Different from China's 500-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) –
also the largest of its kind in the world, designed to collect passive
observations of radio signals from space – the new Fuyan will actively shoot
radio signals at celestial bodies to obtain new observations, according to
space experts.
Construction phases
According to Long, the Fuyan program will have three phases of construction.
In the first phase, the team will set up four pieces of the radar of
16-meter diameter to verify the feasibility of the radar system, rendering a
3D image of the moon. So far, two of the four radars have been constructed
in Chongqing and they are expected to become operational by this
September.
In the second phase, the team will increase the number of antennas from four
to over 20, forming a high-definition distributed radar system equivalent to
one with a diameter of 100 meters. This will also enable China to probe and
image asteroid some tens of millions kilometers away and verify relevant
technology.
Lastly, the research team will gradually realize the observation capability
of 150 million kilometers, making China Fuyan the world's first deep-space
radar to have the capability to carry out 3D imaging and dynamic monitoring
as well as active observation of celestial bodies throughout the inner solar
system.
However, the BIT's Chongqing innovation center said that the schedule and
scale of the third stage is yet to be determined, as final decisions would
be made based on results and studies run during the first two phases.
Near-Earth asteroid monitoring and defense system
Following China's announcement of plans on building a near-Earth asteroid
monitoring and defense system this April, the China Fuyan program was
introduced to deal with the threat of asteroids impacting spacecrafts and
contribute to protecting the Earth and the human race.
The China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced on this year's
Space Day of China, April 24, that it is planning on building an asteroid
monitoring and defense system, and will carry out a technical experiment as
early as 2025 on a threatening asteroid by closely tracking and attacking it
to change its orbit.
The Fuyan will also support the country's quests of probing the territory
between the Earth and the moon, including searching for a proper landing
target for the Tianwen-2 probe, according to the BIT.
Zhang Rongqiao, the chief designer of Tianwen-1 Mars probe mission, told the
media in May that Tianwen-2 had entered its prototype research and
development stage, and is expected to be launched by 2025. Tianwen-2 will be
a decade-long mission, during which the probe will carry out observations
and bring samples from near-Earth asteroid 2016HO3, also named Kamo'oalewa.
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Space & Astrophysics