China embarked on Thursday on its first mission to retrieve samples from a nearby asteroid, with the nighttime launch of its Tianwen-2 spacecraft, set to make the fast-growing space power the third nation to fetch pristine asteroid rocks.

China launches Tianwen-2 mission to sample near Earth asteroid China launched its second planetary exploration mission Wednesday, sending Tianwen-2 to sample a near Earth asteroid and later survey a main belt comet.

China's Tianwen-2 will attempt to collect asteroid samples, return them to Earth, and then head out to explore a strange, dusty comet.