{"id":17423,"date":"2022-07-01T09:30:34","date_gmt":"2022-07-01T09:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/how-china-plans-to-become-the-next-big-space-power"},"modified":"2022-07-01T10:21:28","modified_gmt":"2022-07-01T10:21:28","slug":"how-china-plans-to-become-the-next-big-space-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/how-china-plans-to-become-the-next-big-space-power","title":{"rendered":"How China plans to become the next big space power"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Mauritius. <\/strong><\/span>Three Chinese astronauts have begun a six-month mission, to work on the country\u2019s new space station. It is China\u2019s latest step towards making itself a leading space power for the decades ahead.
\nLast year, China put into orbit the first module of its Tiangong or \u201cHeavenly Palace\u201d space station. It plans to add more modules, such as Mengtian science lab, by the end of the year.
\nNext year, it will launch a space telescope, called Xuntian. This will fly close to the space station, and dock with it for servicing and refuelling. Tiangong will have its own power, propulsion, life support systems and living quarters.<\/p>\n

China is only the third country in history to have put both astronauts into space and to build a space station, after the Soviet Union (and now Russia) and the US.<\/p>\n

It has big ambitions for Tiangong and hopes it will replace the International Space Station (ISS), which is due to be decommissioned in 2031. Chinese astronauts are excluded from the ISS because US law bans its space agency, Nasa, from sharing its data with China.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s ambitions do not end there. A few years from now it wants to take samples from asteroids near the Earth. By 2030, it aims to have put its first astronauts on the Moon, and to have sent probes to collect samples from Mars and Jupiter.<\/p>\n

As China expands its role in space, several other countries are also aiming to get to the Moon. Nasa plans to return to the Moon with astronauts from the US and other countries from 2025 onwards and has already rolled its new giant SLS rocket at the Kennedy Space Center,<\/p>\n

Japan, South Korea, Russia, India, the United Arab Emirates are also working on their own lunar missions. India has launched its second major Moon mission already and wants to have its own space station by 2030.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the European Space Agency, which is working with Nasa on Moon missions, is also planning a network of lunar satellites to make it easier for astronauts to communicate with Earth.<\/p>\n

China put its first satellite into orbit in 1970 \u2013 as it went through massive disruptions caused by the Cultural Revolution. The only other powers to have gone into space by that stage were the US, the Soviet Union, France and Japan.<\/p>\n

In the past 10 years, China has launched more than 200 rockets. It has already sent an unmanned mission to the Moon, called Chang\u2019e 5, to collect and return rock samples.<\/p>\n

It planted a Chinese flag on the lunar surface \u2013 which was deliberately bigger than previous US flags. With the launch of Shenzhou 14, China has now put 14 astronauts into space, compared with 340 by the US and more than 130 by the Soviet Union (and now Russia).<\/p>\n

But there have been setbacks. In 2021, part of a Chinese rocket tumbled out of orbit and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean and two launches failed in 2020.<\/p>\n

Chinese state media Xinhua said at least 300,000 people have worked on China\u2019s space projects \u2013 almost 18 times as many as currently work for Nasa. The Chinese National Space Administration was set up in 2003 with an initial annual budget of two billion yuan ($300m, \u00a3240m).<\/p>\n

However, in 2016 China opened its space industry to private companies, and these are now investing more than 10 billion yuan ($1.5bn, \u00a31.2bn) a year, according to Chinese media.<\/p>\n

China is keen to develop its satellite technology, for telecommunications, air traffic management, weather forecasting and navigation and more. But many of its satellites also have military purposes.
\nThey can help it spy on rival powers, and guide long-range missiles. Lucinda King, space project manager at Portsmouth University, says China is not just focussing on high-profile space missions: \u201cThey are prolific in all aspects of space.
\nThey have the political motivation and the resources to fund their planned programmes. \u201d China\u2019s Moon missions are partly motivated by the opportunities to extract rare earth metals from its surface, such as lithium.
\nHowever, Prof Sa\u2019id Mosteshar, director of the London Institute of Space Policy and Law at the University of London, says it probably would not pay for China to send repeated mining missions to the Moon.
\nInstead, he says China\u2019s space programme is driven more by a desire to impress the rest of the world. \u201cIt\u2019s a projection of power and a demonstration of technological advancement.\u201d<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Mauritius<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Mauritius. Three Chinese astronauts have begun a six-month mission, to work on the country\u2019s new space station. It is China\u2019s latest step towards making itself a leading space power for the decades ahead. Last year, China put into orbit the first module of its Tiangong or \u201cHeavenly Palace\u201d space station. It plans to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":17422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,9,16],"tags":[233,245,1156,241],"class_list":["post-17423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-miscellaneous","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-mauritius","tag-london","tag-mauritius"],"yoast_head":"\nHow China plans to become the next big space power - Mauritius<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Three Chinese astronauts have begun a six-month mission, to work on the country\u2019s new space station. 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