13/06/2026
Over the weekend, China’s second deep-space mission, Tianwen-2, quietly performed a crucial engine burn to rendezvous with a mysterious tiny world in a quasi-Earth orbit. Although China’s space administration has yet to acknowledge the milestone, amateur radio observers using telescopes in Germany and the Netherlands tracked the maneuver, observing Tianwen-2 to now be in the vicinity of the near-Earth asteroid Kamoʻoalewa. Over the next four weeks, the spacecraft will approach the rapidly spinning asteroid to begin studying and mapping its surface, lining up future sampling attempts.
“Every new image of an asteroid has been a surprise. We have everything to learn.” http://spklr.io/6002E3kzY
