China Points Toward Asteroid Defense System, Comet Mission

BEIJING - China will discuss building a defense system against near-Earth asteroids, a senior space agency official said Saturday, as the country steps up its longer-term space ambitions.

Zhang Kejian, head of the China National Space Administration, did not provide further detail in his opening remarks at a ceremony for China's Space Day in the eastern city of Nanjing. China has made space exploration a top priority in recent years, aiming to establish a program operating thousands of space flights a year and carrying tens of thousands of tons of cargo and passengers by 2045. The European Space Agency last year signed a deal worth 129 million euros ($156 million) to build a spacecraft for a joint project with NASA examining how to deflect an asteroid heading for Earth.