It has great ambitions for its space station.. Will China become the
? major space power
Three Chinese astronauts have begun a six-month mission to complete the construction of the new Chinese space station "Tiangong", in the latest step taken by China to become a leading space power in the coming decades, as it will launch next year, the "Sunxian" space telescope, to fly near the space station and dock with it for the purpose of Maintenance and refueling.
According to a report by the BBC, China put the first basic unit of its Tiangong (Heavenly Palace) space station into orbit last year, and plans to add more units, such as the Mingtian Laboratory, by the end of this year.
The Chinese space station will contain living quarters, energy, propulsion and life-saving systems, as China is the third country in history to send astronauts into space and build space stations after the Soviet Union (now Russia) and the United States.
China has big ambitions for its space station, and hopes to replace the International Space Station (ISS), which is due to be dismantled in 2031.
And the “BBC” indicated that the Chinese astronauts were excluded from the American space station under an American law that prohibits the American space agency “NASA” from sharing its data with China.
'Unlimited' ambitions
The report pointed out that China's ambitions do not end at the Tiangong station, but rather it wants to take samples of near-Earth asteroids after a few years.
In 2030, China aims to send astronauts to the moon for the first time and send probes to collect samples from Mars and Jupiter.
While China is expanding in space, many other countries are also aiming to reach the moon, and in this regard, NASA plans to return to the moon by sending astronauts from the United States and other countries starting from 2025 onwards, as it revealed its giant rocket “SLS” in Kennedy Space Center.
China sent its first satellite into orbit in 1970, at a time when the country was going through massive upheaval due to the Cultural Revolution. The United States, the Soviet Union, France, and Japan were the only powers that had access to space at this point.
China has launched more than 200 missiles in the past 10 years, and sent an unmanned mission to the moon called "Chang-5" to collect and return rock samples, and China also placed its flag, which was larger than the American flags, on the surface of the moon.
14 astronauts
With the launch of the Shenzhou-14 manned spacecraft, China has sent 14 astronauts into space, compared to 340 sent by the United States and 130 by Russia.
But China also faced setbacks. In 2021, a part of a Chinese rocket fell out of orbit in the Atlantic Ocean, and it failed to launch two in 2020.
The BBC quoted the Chinese news agency, Xinhua, as saying that at least 300,000 people have participated in Chinese space projects, or nearly 18 times the number of current workers at NASA.
Diverse fields
The China National Space Administration was established in 2003 with an initial annual budget of two billion yuan ($300 million), but China opened the way for private companies to invest in the space industry in 2016, and these companies now invest more than 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) annually. According to Chinese media.
China is seeking to develop its own satellite technology for use in communications, air traffic management, weather forecasting, and navigation, but many Chinese satellites are also used for military purposes and help China spy on rival powers and guide long-range missiles.
Lucinda King, director of the space project at the University of Portsmouth, said that China "is not only focused on high-level space missions, they are very present in all aspects of space, and they have the political defense and resources to fund their planned programmes."
It is noteworthy that Japan, South Korea, Russia, India and the UAE are also working on sending space missions to the moon, as India launched its second mission to the moon, and wants to build its space station by 2030.
The European Space Agency, which cooperates with NASA in sending missions to the moon, plans to launch a network of satellites to facilitate communication with astronauts from Earth.
Source: Bloomberg + BBC