Yes, we’re in the middle of meeting season. A meeting happened a week and a half ago- in my defense, it was all in Chinese, and that’s not one of my languages. It’s also the third annual Tiandu Forum (“International Deep Space Exploration Conference”), Heifei, China September 4-5. We’ll see if this becomes one of the big yearly conferences.
Among the forum items:
– National Near-Earth Asteroid Defense Conference
Orbits and Physicochemical Properties of Near-Earth Asteroids
Monitoring and Early Warning of Near-Earth Asteroids
Risk Assessment and in-orbit Disposal of Near-Earth Asteroids
The second Construction Seminar on the Construction on DSEL Science and Innovation Platform
The second meeting of the First Council of the International Deep Space Exploration Association
If you haven’t already gathered, the Chinese space program is detailing its asteroid search, follow-up, and exploration plans. Given the general outline of other nations’ efforts (including COPUOS, IAWN, SMPAG, etc.) the broad plans are nothing unusual; we’re just seeing them made explicit. A vague plan is a sign of no plan at all.