China plans to send astronauts onto the Moon and Mars.

JIUQUAN Satellite Launch Center Thirty-years ago, the Chinese government started a secret plan to build a space station.

The country was still 11 years away from sending its first spaceman. Space efforts were also in a rough spot. China had suffered three failed Chinese rockets in 1991, 1992 and 1995, as well as two in 1996. A rocket that fell in 1996 was the worst. It launched in the wrong direction and exploded just 22 seconds after launch. This sparked a firestorm in China, injuring or killing at least 63 people.

Although spaceflight plans of some countries are years behind schedule, China completed the assembly in orbit of its Tiangong station in late October. This is only 22 months ahead of schedule. On November 29, Shenzhou Mission 15 was completed. It was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in ChinaThree astronauts are transported deep into the Gobi Desert to take over the space station and assume permanent occupation of the outpost.

These human accomplishments in spaceflight and recent probes to Mars and the moon add to the evidence that China is not competing in a head to head space race with the United States. It is clear that China’s space program is a good time to reach its long-term goals. During a rare foreign media visit, the country’s desert missile base was visited for the launch of the rocket on November 29th. The interview included lengthy interviews with top Chinese space officials as well as The New York Times reporters.

The Pentagon predicted in AugustChina will surpass America in space technology by 2045.

Lieutenant General Nina M. At a conference in Sydney the day before the launch of Shenzhou 15. “The amazing progress they’ve made was incredible – it was amazingly fast.”

The Chinese program abandoned the starting line in 1986, many decades after the heights and glory of the Soviet Union-U.S. space race. Deng Xiaoping (the supreme leader of China at that time) approved Project 863. This was a science and technology program that included plans for a manned satellite.

Project 921 marked the beginning of a new era in the program’s recovery. “The goal that set back then was to complete construction of the Chinese space station around 2020,” said Zhou Jianping, chief designer of China’s manned space program.

Despite the initial awkwardness of the rockets exploding instead, China has been growing at a rapid pace over the years. American companies have helped China solve quality problems with rockets by finding an affordable way to launch satellites into space. Boeing was completed in 2003. approvalHughes Space and Communications will pay $32 Million in fines for violating US arms export controls.

The US Space Agency was prohibited by Congress from spending any money in 2011 for space cooperation with China. This ban was put in place to stop China from joining the International Space Station.

Frank Wolf, a retired Republican congressman who supported the legislation, said in an email that he still believes it is necessary. He stated, “Bottom line: we should not collaborate with China.”

China has also benefitted from Russian expertise extensively over time, starting with Jiuquan’s 1958 founding as a military base for developing China’s first intercontinental ballistic Missiles. The Russian Soyuz spacecraft is strongly resemblable to the spacecraft carrying the Shenzhou missions.

According to the country’s space officials, every component of their spacecraft was made in China. But they acknowledge that they have benefited over the years from cooperation with their northern neighbor.

“Chinese manned flight has had many exchanges with Russia during the development process. 100 percent localization does NOT mean that there are no exchanges or cooperation,” stated Mr. Zhou.

China is currently pursuing its own programs. Russia has not yet participated in its new station.

Half a dozen Chinese space officers have made remarkable progress in space in recent decades. They spoke out at the launch center in interviews about their plans for the future. It is located in northwest China in a vast, frozen expanse with gray gravel. Drive from the nearest major city.

The Tiangong station is about 100 tons in weight. This is about the same weight as the US Skylab station in 1973 and the Mir space station in 1986 that the Soviet Union began to assemble in space.

The Chinese public was shown Tiangong by the state media as a three-bedroom house in a skyscraper. It is smaller than the International Space Station. Which is approximately 450 tonsIt sleeps seven people.

What China’s space station may lack in heft, Chinese officials are trying to balance the efficient management of space—a polite phrase for crowding out astronauts and experiments. However, space experts in the West also point out that the International Space Station is larger than it should be, particularly considering the miniaturization and subsequent development of scientific equipment since 1994.

China plans to have at least three astronauts in its space station, starting with the Shenzhou 15 crew arriving on November 30. That would expand to six astronauts during their one-week overlap every six months when a replacement crew arrives — still short of the International Space Station’s usual number of seven astronauts.

Ji Qiming, assistant general director of the China Manned Space Program Engineering Bureau, stated that the Shenzhou 15 astronauts would first debug equipment on the newly constructed space station. He stated that they would “complete the opening, installation, and testing of 15 scientific experiment racks, and the implementation and testing of more than 40 experiments and technical testing in space science and technology in the field space science research, applications, and space medicine,” but did not provide details.

China’s space station will offer four-fifths of the International Space Station’s racks for experimentation if it is managed efficiently, Mr. Zhou stated. One of the experiments will include a very cold atomic timer.

He said, “This could very likely play a role in basic physics research such as non-Newtonian gravitational redshift and gravity research.”

As soon as next year, the space station will also have a separate telescope, Xuntian, orbiting nearby to survey the universe in optical and ultraviolet wavelengths — in many ways, a more advanced version of NASA’s 32-year-old Hubble Space Telescope.

“The advantage of the Sky Survey Telescope is that it can carry out large-scale surveys of the sky—we plan to complete the survey of 42 percent of the sky area in 10 years,” said Mr. Zhou. “We expect to obtain some very important findings, especially considering that our telescope should offer the best ultraviolet wavelengths in the world.”

Mr. Ji stated that Shenzhou 15 will be undertaking three to four spacewalks in the next few months. They will also use a new automated charging airlock that allows science experiments in the frozen void.

“It will reach a very low level of temperature so that we can study some very important phenomena in fundamental physics, such as the Bose-Einstein condensate,” Mr. Chu said, referring to a condensed state of matter that exists only at temperatures close to absolute temperature. zero.

Although there was limited cooperation, Chinese officials said they learned valuable lessons from American counterparts. For example, Chinese officials are happy that they didn’t make the same mistake NASA made in the 1970s, which was to build a large, but expensive, spaceplane.

Instead, they admire Elon Musk’s rocket company.

“In 2009, when I first learned about SpaceX at a meeting in the United States, I was surprised: I had never heard of this company when I was in the United States before, how quickly it developed into a large company,” Zhu said.

SpaceX: Chinese space officials see the value in spacecraft and reusable rockets.

“The space shuttle is very complex,” said Mr. Zhou, while the capsules used by China and SpaceX are “relatively easier technologically to ensure reliability and safety, and they are also more economical.” He later emphasized that “in a few years, we will be able to realize the reuse of re-entry capsules for our new generation spaceships.”

After much international criticism of Long March 5B missiles in China, the development of reusable weapon technology in China has become more important. China has granted permission to use these missiles’ massive base boosters. Fall out of control on EarthEach module of the Tiangong spacestation was sent into orbit.

Nicholas Burns was the US ambassador in China. He said that he encouraged China’s “to be more careful about uncontrolled re-entry large missile objects.”

China was cautious about criticizing Long March 5B core boosters. One of the missile stage’s failed tests in 2020 caused damage, but no one has been injured or killed. A launch of at least one missile stage is planned for 2023, when Xuntian’s telescope will go into orbit.

Officials from China claim they want to prevent uncontrolled re-entry and to reuse the missiles.

Mr. Zhou stated that reuse will be an important technical goal for all of our projects. Although it will present technical challenges, reuse will also bring economic benefits and allow for better development in the aviation industry.

China tested a prototype for a reusable rocket booster on November 26, according Rong Yi (chief designer of the Long March 2F rocket that took the Shenzhou 15 space flight). She said that China had been working hard to develop guidance technologies that would ensure that a reusable rocket lands in a specific place for a long time.

He Yu, the chief commander of manned satelliteship systems at China’s Academy of Space Technology, stated that China had tested a reusable prototype spacecraft capsule in May 2020.

Chinese officials have plans to send astronauts to the Moon, so efforts to create a reusable spacecraft are parallel to those to develop one. Although they haven’t given an exact timeframe, they have indicated that it won’t happen. Later in the year 2030.

Both Mr. Ji, and Mr. Zhu said that the manned lunar landing vehicle has been a great success.

“These works have laid the foundation for the manned moon exploration project,” Mr. Ji stated during a press conference at Jiuquan Launch Center. He then referred to Chinese mythology. In the near future, the ninth heaven will be realized.

A person was however sent to the moon. China has a greater prize than sending a person on Mars. It has aimed to reduce the flight time, possibly using nuclear propulsion instead of conventional rocket engines. Officials insist that any flight will be round trip and all astronauts will return alive and well.

“Technically it’s theoretically possible but it has enormous engineering challenges because of the volume and we’ve estimated at minimum 900 days of travel” based upon current technologies, Mr. Chu said.

He said that the trip can be cut to 500 days using nuclear propulsion. However, it is impossible to predict whether China will follow this approach.

Huang Weifen, the chief designer for China’s astronaut program, stated that she is seeking ways to ensure that astronauts can remain healthy on the 500-day flight.

She said, “It’s a paradigm shift in aviation – a very large challenge for people in regards to medical and psychological issues as well as livelihood guarantees.”

Despite all these difficulties China is determined to keep its long-term plan in space.

“The landings on Mars and on the moon are very important steps in the development of human civilisation,” said Mr. Zhou. “We may understand and realize its incremental value step by step. But its role in the development of our human civilization is huge, so it is worth our efforts – it is worth fighting for.”

Please contact meThe Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center contributed research.