FPI / February 21, 2025
By Richard Fisher
A December 2024 discovery of a new large asteroid heading our way — even though it has a 99 percent chance of missing the Earth — is nevertheless providing an excuse for China to assemble a “Planetary Defense Force” that could justify China’s building of a range of “dual use” military capabilities in space.
On Dec. 27, 2024, a 100-meter wide asteroid “2024 YR4” was discovered by an automated telescope in Chile and judged to have a 1 to 2 percent chance of hitting the Earth in 2032.
Even though the chances are very small, were an asteroid of this size to hit the Earth, it might cause enough damage to take out a city, whereas the “extinction” asteroid that ended the reign of the dinosaurs was 10 to 15 kilometers wide.
Nevertheless, discovery of the YR4 asteroid triggered the notification of two asteroid monitoring groups: The International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN), established by United Nations recommendation in 2013 and now coordinated by the United States National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA); And the Space Mission Planning Advisory Group, also endorsed by the United Nations in 2013 and coordinated by the European Space Agency (ESA).
But now China may be using this asteroid threat to justify an escalation in its own efforts to defend against asteroids and potentially other space threats.
“China has begun recruiting for a planetary defense force after risk assessments determined that an asteroid could conceivably hit Earth in 2032,” notes a Feb. 14 report in The Guardian, by Taipei-based reporter Helen Davidson.
She discovered that China’s State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND), had been posting online job advertisements for a new “Planetary Defense Force” that required individuals under the age of 35, with proper technical qualifications, and “’a firm political stance’ supporting the Chinese Communist party and an ideology aligned with its leader, Xi Jinping.”
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While China has monitored interest in the United States and elsewhere in the defense against asteroids and in recent years has demonstrated an increased interest in this challenge as seen in academic journal articles, this is the first instance of China taking an active step toward creating a planetary defense capability.
Previously from Oct. 23 to 27, 2021, the city of Guilin, China, hosted “The First China Planetary Defense Conference,” a clear indication of the interest by China’s military, space and academic sectors in developing planetary defenses for China.
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