Tianwen-2 beams – China’s Tianwen-2 has beamed back its first image of Kamo‘oalewa, a near-Earth quasi-satellite “mini moon” targeted for a complex, multi-method sampling mission due to return to Earth in 2027.
A spacecraft that has been traveling for more than a year is now looking back. China’s Tianwen-2 mission to the near-Earth asteroid Kamo‘oalewa has beamed back its first image of its target, giving the clearest early sign yet that the long journey is bearing down on the right object.
Kamo‘oalewa is unusual in the way it keeps close to Earth even as it travels through space. It loops around the sun. but it sticks near our planet—coming as close as 9 million miles and as far as 25 million miles from Earth. Astronomers have identified eight similar quasi-satellites that appear to follow Earth’s path.
Some researchers have given these objects an endearing nickname: Earth’s “mini moons,” or quasi moons. But there’s no single story for what Kamo‘oalewa actually is. Research suggests it may be a stray piece of the Moon thrown into space by an ancient impact. Other evidence, including observations by the James Webb Space Telescope, disputes that idea.
Tianwen-2 is already deep into the timeline. The spacecraft spent the last 400 days traveling to Kamo’oalewa, a journey that spanned around 621 million miles. The rock itself was discovered in 2016, and it measures about 66 feet in diameter—roughly the size of a school bus. It rotates on its axis every 28 minutes.
China launched Tianwen-2 on May 28, 2025, with a clear goal: retrieve samples and bring them back. The plan is to return the material to Earth in 2027 by dropping the samples into Earth’s atmosphere during a flyby of the planet.
The mission’s sampling approach is designed to handle uncertainty. Tianwen-2’s equipment will recover samples in three different ways, depending on what it finds. One option is a touch-and-go method similar to NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sampling mission and Japan’s Hayabusa2. Another is an anchor-and-attach method. in which the spacecraft physically attaches itself to the space rock and then collects samples from the surface and the subsurface. A third approach is hovering: a robotic arm would deploy from the spacecraft as it hovers over the asteroid and scoop up some of the surface material.
As the spacecraft closes in, China’s space agency has already shared a key milestone. The China National Space Administration said Tianwen-2 reached a distance of 12 miles from the asteroid in late June.
CNSA also described the next steps in technical terms: Tianwen-2 will progressively conduct more detailed scientific exploration to acquire data on the asteroid’s morphology, material composition, and internal structure—data meant to lay the groundwork for subsequent sample collection operations.
Once Tianwen-2 drops off the samples in Earth’s atmosphere, the mission won’t end. The spacecraft is scheduled to continue its journey to comet 311P/PanSTARRS, where it will conduct further observations and scientific studies.
For now, the first image arriving back on Earth is more than a milestone—it’s a reassurance that the target’s strange orbit and contested origin can be met with careful, methodical engineering, all while the clock moves toward 2027.
Tianwen-2 Kamo‘oalewa quasi moon mini moon near-Earth asteroid sample return 2027 CNSA OSIRIS-REx Hayabusa2 James Webb Space Telescope 311P/PanSTARRS