BEIJING (AP) – China’s third landing on the moon is part of an increasingly ambitious space program that includes a robot rover heading to Mars, developing a reusable aircraft and plans to return humans to the lunar surface.
The first attempt to bring lunar rocks to Earth since the 1970s, Chang 5, collected samples on Wednesday, China’s space agency announced. The probe landed on a sea of storms near the moon on Tuesday.
Space exploration is a political trophy for the ruling Communist Party, which seeks global influence to match China’s economic success.
China is a generation behind the United States and Russia, but its secret, military-linked program is rapidly evolving. It is building a special mission that, if successful, could put Beijing on the leading edge of space flight.
Decade The coming decade will be “absolutely critical” for space research, said Kathleen Campbell, an ast strobiologist and geologist at Calend University.
“This is where we are shifting closer to the Earth’s orbit and back to what people call ‘deep space’.
In 2003, China became the third nation to launch an astronaut into orbit on its own, four decades after the former Soviet Union and the United States. Its first temporary orbital laboratory was launched in 2011 and the second in 2016. Calls for the launch of a permanent space station after 2022.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the landing this week was “a historic step in China’s cooperation with the international community in the peaceful use of outer space.”
Hua said China will continue to promote the exploration and use of outer space in the spirit of international cooperation and working for the interests of all mankind.
After astronaut Yang Liwei’s flight in 2003, space officials expressed hope for a crew lunar mission earlier this year. But they said it depends on the budget and technology. They have pushed that target to 2024 or later.
The space agency gave no reason to land its latest probe into the Storm Sea since American and Soviet craft came down. But selection can help shed light on potential sites being studied for crew missions.
Beijing’s spacecraft will be China’s American space shuttle and a short-lived version of the former Soviet Union’s Buran.
China has also launched its own Bedouin network of navigation satellites so the military wing of the Communist Party, the People’s Liberation Army, does not need to rely on US-operated GPS or a rival Russian system.
Last year, China graduated from the “I too” mission, mimicking Soviet and American adventures, when it became the first nation to explore the slightly explored side of the moon.
That probe, the Chang 4 and its robot rover, is still in operation, transmitting to Earth via an orbiter passing through the moon. China’s first lunar lander, Chang 3, is still being aired.
China’s first crew was the spacecraft, Shenzo Capsules, based on Russian technology. Its powerful Long March rockets, like those of its Soviet and American predecessors, are based on ballistic missiles developed using technology captured from Nazi Germany after World War II.
China has advanced more cautiously than the broken US-Soviet space race of the 1960s, which was marked by casualties. China’s crew missions have proceeded without incident. Technical issues have delayed some launches of robotic vehicles but seem to have been resolved.
China is in a growing space competition with its Asian neighbors Japan and India, which it sees as strategic rivals. The two have sent their respective probes to Mars.
While collecting Chang 5 lunar rocks, Japan’s space agency pulled out an even more challenging feat of getting samples from the asteroid Ryugu. The Haibusa 2 mission is to deliver it to Earth on Saturday.
As his confidence grows, so do Beijing’s space goals.
It has joined the Mars exploration race, and its Tianven-1 probe, carried by a robot rover to detect water signs in July, is scheduled to complete its 470 million kilometers (292 million miles) journey in February.
Plans in early 2022 call for a permanent crew space station.
China has been excluded from the International Space Station due to US opposition to the involvement of Chinese military officials in an venture run by civilian space agencies.
Pe Zhaoyoy, deputy director of the Chinese agency’s lunar research center, told reporters last week that the plans also demand an international lunar research center at some stage.
Despite its success, the military-run Chinese program is more secretive than other governments.
Yang and other Chinese astronauts made only a handful of brief public appearances after their flights, in contrast Soviet and American astronauts were sent on a global publicity tour before encouraging foreign crowds.
The agency announced in September that its spacecraft had completed a successful test flight, but details or a photo of the craft have yet to be released.
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Milko reported from Jakarta, Indonesia.
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