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Beijing (AFP)
China’s launch this week of an unmanned spacecraft aimed at recovering moon rocks, the first attempt by a nation to retrieve samples from the Moon in four decades, underscores how far the country has come to achieve its “space dream. “.
Beijing has invested billions in its military-led space program, hoping to have a manned space station by 2022 and eventually send humans to the Moon.
China has come a long way in its career to catch up with the United States and Russia, whose astronauts and cosmonauts have had decades of experience in space exploration.
Beijing views its military-led space program as an indicator of its growing global stature and growing technological power.
Here’s a look at China’s space program over the decades and where it’s headed:
Mao’s vote
Shortly after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, Chairman Mao Zedong pronounced “we will also make satellites.”
It took more than a decade, but in 1970, China’s first satellite was launched into space on the back of a Long March rocket.
Human spaceflight took decades longer, and Yang Liwei became the first Chinese astronaut to go into space in 2003.
As the launch approached, concerns about the feasibility of the mission led Beijing to cancel a nationwide live television broadcast at the last minute.
Despite fears, the launch went smoothly, with Yang orbiting Earth 14 times during his 21-hour flight aboard the Shenzhou 5.
Since then, China has sent men and women into space with increasing regularity.
Space Station and ‘Jade Rabbit’
Following in the footsteps of the United States and Russia, China is striving to open a space station that encircles our planet.
Tiangong-1 entered orbit in September 2011.
In 2013, the second Chinese woman in space, Wang Yaping, gave a video class from inside the space module broadcast to children in the world’s most populous country.
The laboratory was also used for medical experiments and, more importantly, tests aimed at preparing the construction of a space station.
The lab was followed by the lunar “Jade Rabbit” rover in 2013, which at first seemed like a failure when it went dormant and stopped sending signals to Earth.
However, the rover recovered drastically, eventually surveying the Moon’s surface for 31 months, well beyond its expected lifespan.
In 2016, China put its second station, the Tiangong-2 lab, into orbit 393 kilometers (244 miles) above Earth, in what analysts say will likely serve as a final building block before China launches one. manned space station.
Astronauts who have visited the station have conducted experiments with growing rice and other plants, as well as docking spacecraft.
‘Space dream’
Under President Xi Jinping, plans for China’s “space dream,” as he calls it, have accelerated.
The new superpower is finally looking to catch up with the United States and Russia after years of belatedly matching their space milestones.
Ambitions start with a space station of its own (China was deliberately left out of the International Space Station effort) and assembly of parts in space is expected to begin this year and manned use to begin around 2022.
China also plans to build a base on the moon, and Zhang Kejian, head of the country’s National Space Administration, said last year that the country was aiming to establish a lunar mission by 2029.
But lunar work suffered a setback in 2017 when the Long March-5 Y2, a powerful heavy-lift rocket, failed to launch on a mission to send communication satellites into orbit.
The failure forced the launch of Chang’e-5, which was originally scheduled to collect samples from the Moon, to be postponed in the second half of 2017.
Another robot, the Chang’e-4, landed on the other side of the Moon in January 2019, a historic first.
Chinese astronauts and scientists have also spoken of manned missions to Mars as Beijing strives to become a global space power.
© 2020 AFP
