China Launches Shenzhou 16 with First Civilian Astronaut, Confirms Space Ambitions and Plans for Lunar Landing by 2030

The Shenzhou 16 (or “Divine Vessel”) mission lifted off at 9:31 a.m. local time on Tuesday from the Jiuquan Launch Center in China’s northwest Gobi Desert. On board the Longue-Marche 2F rocket, three astronauts including, for the first time, a civilian.

Gui Haichao is not from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) as is customary, but is a professor specializing in space science and engineering. The Shenzhou-16 astronauts will stay for six months on the Tiangong (“Heavenly Palace”) space station where they will replace their three colleagues from the previous mission, Shenzhou-15, who will return to Earth in a few days.

A space telescope approaching

Comprised of three modules, the Chinese station was completed late last year after 11 manned and unmanned missions since April 2021. Now operational, it is similar in size to the former Russian-Soviet Mir station but is much smaller than the International Space Station (ISS). Currently T-shaped, the station will in the future see a new module docking to create a cross-shaped structure.

Beijing is expected to launch another crewed mission to the orbital station later this year. Also by the end of 2023, China is expected to launch a space telescope the size of a large bus. Known as Xuntian, (“Survey the Skies”), the orbiting telescope will offer a field of view 350 times wider than that of the Hubble Space Telescope, launched 33 years ago.

This launch confirms China’s space ambitions. China’s conquest of space began under Mao more than 60 years ago but has accelerated since Xi Jinping came to power a decade ago. The Chinese president said the country should become a “great space power”. Beijing is investing billions of euros to catch up or even exceed the powers in the sector (United States, European Union, Russia) in terms of exploration, research or the launching of satellites.

China’s space program is growing rapidly while that of the United States has tended to get bogged down by conflicting priorities and changes in administration. Thus, in 2019, China placed a machine on the far side of the Moon, a world first. In 2020, he brought back samples from the Moon and finalized Beidou, his satellite navigation system. In 2021, China landed a small robot on Mars…

“Kiss the Moon”

As the United States and China step up competition in space, Beijing on Monday confirmed it wants to complete a mission to land a person on the moon by 2030, a timeline that Chinese scientists had already set. “We can kiss the moon in the ninth heaven,” Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of China’s Manned Space Agency, said Monday at a press conference, citing a poem by Mao Zedong. This project is part of the larger lunar exploration project which would also seek to enable short stays on the lunar surface, as well as collect samples and conduct research, Lin Xiqiang said.

A manned lunar landing would be a major milestone for China’s space exploration. No human has been on the moon since the United States’ Apollo missions in the 1960s and 1970s. NASA also announced a plan to send people to the moon again, with a target of 2025. But the program Artemis is experiencing delays. Beijing and Washington have also set goals of building a research station on the Moon and landing people on Mars.

A theater of tension

As space has become a theater of tensions between Washington and Beijing, NASA boss Bill Nelson has said the United States should “be careful” of Chinese attempts to dominate the lunar surface and prevent Americans to enter. A Pentagon report last year warned that China could overtake American capabilities in space by 2045. China is aware that any future war, especially with the United States, will begin in outer space. -atmospheric and cybernetic. Taking command of space and networks is a decisive issue in the event of a conflict.

While some hoped that China and the United States could cooperate on space exploration despite geopolitical tensions, a provision of US law that funds NASA prohibits direct cooperation with the Chinese space agency or Chinese companies. So far, no country has accepted Xi’s offer to send its astronauts into space aboard a Chinese rocket.

The European Space Agency sent two astronauts on a training mission with Chinese counterparts in 2017, with the aim of eventually sending European astronauts to China’s space station, but in January this year the director general of the The agency said it has no such plans.

“Abandoning human space cooperation with China is clearly short-sighted, revealing that the confrontation of US-led camps has led to a new space race,” the nationalist newspaper reported. Global Times” after the European statements. China has indicated that it will cooperate with Russia on space programs.