/ world today news/ “Despite the suppression of China’s development in the space sector by the US, which is no less than that of the chip industry, China’s capabilities in exploring the Moon and other planets of the Solar System have already advanced to leading world level.” This was stated by Wu Weizhen, chief engineer of China’s lunar exploration program and an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering Sciences. He made the comments during his keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the 25th annual meeting of the China Association for Science and Technology, the most important meeting of Chinese scientific circles, held this year in Hefei, the capital of east China’s Anhui province.
Wu also mentioned another major event in international space exploration efforts – the US’s Artemis project, which aims to return Americans to the moon and has already brought together nearly 30 countries in a cooperation agreement. “The US plans to return to the moon, build a lunar base, and then use it as a springboard for its future Mars landings,” Wu said. “However, China is excluded from the US project.”
“China’s space exploration faces serious challenges, marked by blockade and isolation by the United States and other countries. This can be compared to similar policies of the West regarding chip supply. Space exploration is becoming a new arena for battle and competition between the great powers of our time,” commented Wu Weizhen.
Despite all this, China has already achieved many achievements in the field of space exploration on its own. In January 2019, the Chinese lunar probe Chang’e-4 successfully landed on the dark side of the moon. The next mission, Chang’e-5, successfully brought back multiple samples from the Earth satellite in October 2020. The mission Tianyuan-1, the first-ever Mars exploration mission, has also achieved outstanding results, and China’s lunar and planetary exploration capabilities have advanced to a world-leading level.
The tracking and control capabilities of China’s spacecraft in space have also been strengthened in the development process, realizing a great leap from hundreds of thousands of kilometers to tens of billions of kilometers, growing to the equivalent of its counterparts in the US and Europe.
In the next 15 years, several missions of China are coming up, which will vigorously upgrade the country’s capabilities. Chan-6, which will be launched next year in 2024, will attempt to achieve the world’s first return of a lunar sample from the dark side of the Moon. The Chang’e-7 mission, scheduled for 2026, aims to land on the moon’s south pole and conduct studies of lunar resources and the environment in the area. Next up is Chan-8, which will test new technology that uses lunar resources.
In addition to the missions to the moon, the construction of China’s proposed International Lunar Research Station, which involves the participation of multiple countries, is pending. This year, the China National Space Administration signed joint projects with the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization (APSCO), the Swiss firm nanoSPACE AG and the Hawaii-based International Association of Lunar Observatories.
“China plans to achieve a manned landing on the moon around 2030,” Wu Weizhen also commented.
There are also a number of other space missions that do not involve exploring the Moon. The Tianyuan-2 and Tianyuan-3 missions will collect and return samples from a nearby asteroid. There is also the first execution of a test mission to protect the Earth from an asteroid. “We’re going to apply kinetic energy to an asteroid tens of millions of kilometers away to change its orbit. Thus, we will test our technology of protecting the planet from a possible asteroid disaster,” added U.
China will also develop a new super-heavy rocket with a diameter of 10 meters that will be able to send a payload of 150 tons into a near-Earth orbit.
China is taking confident steps towards serious development of space exploration technologies. This frontier science offers a new insight into the country’s technological and economic development. Chinese scientists are working hard to solve many problems in science, find practical workable solutions to important engineering questions, and comprehensively exploit progress in many other industrial sectors that can support the country’s space program. China is definitely one of the world leaders in space exploration, and the good foundation laid will yield many new results in the future.
#Chinas #space #program #plans #years
