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BEIJING: China successfully launched a new rocket and prototype spacecraft on Tuesday (May 5), state media said, in a major test of the country’s ambitions to operate a permanent space station and send astronauts to the moon.
The Long March-5B rocket took off from the Wenchang launch site on the southern island of Hainan, and eight minutes later, an unmanned prototype spacecraft successfully separated and entered its planned orbit, according to the Xinhua news agency.
A test version of a chargeback capsule was also successfully detached from the rocket, Xinhua added.
The spacecraft will one day transport astronauts to a space station that China plans to complete by 2022, and eventually to the Moon.
It will have capacity for a crew of six.
The mission will test its “key technologies”, including monitoring its re-entry into the atmosphere, its heat recovery and protection technology, said Yang Qing of the Chinese Academy of Space Technology and designer of the spacecraft. March.
So far, the United States is the only country that has successfully sent humans to the Moon.
But Beijing has made great strides in its effort to catch up, sending astronauts into space, orbiting satellites, and a rover on the other side of the Moon.
849 TONS
The successful maiden flight of the 54B Long March 5B, which has a takeoff mass of approximately 849 tonnes, should reassure China, following failures of the Model 7A in March and the Model 3B in April.
“The new spacecraft will give China an advantage in the area of human space flight over Japan and Europe,” said Chen Lan, an independent analyst at GoTaikonauts.com, which specializes in China’s space program.
The United States no longer has its own spacecraft since it retired the space shuttle in 2011 and relies on Russia to send astronauts to the International Space Station.
Beijing has launched several spacecraft since 1999 and the previous ship, Shenzhou, was inspired by Russia’s Soyuz.
“It depends on how ambitious the Chinese space program is right now, but missions beyond the Moon will be possible,” said Carter Palmer, a space systems analyst at US-based consulting firm Forecast International.
MOON AND BEYOND
The assembly of the Tiangong space station, whose name means Heavenly Palace, is expected to start this year and end in 2022.
The laboratory in orbit will have three modules, with houses and work rooms and two annexes for scientific experiments.
China plans to send an astronaut to the Moon in about a decade, and then build a base there.
It became the first nation to land on the far side of the Moon in January 2019, deploying a lunar rover that has traveled about 450 meters thus far.
The next big mission for Beijing is to land a probe on Mars, and a takeoff is expected this year.
“China has caught up with the United States in some space areas like earth observation and navigation,” Chen said.
“But there are still big gaps between China and the United States in deep space exploration and human space flight,” he said, adding that the United States was the “leading space power today, yesterday and in the near future.”
