China released plans to explore space for the next five years. One of them is strengthening the space station infrastructure.
For the next five years China will focus on space research, in order to be able to land people on the Moon in the coming year.
The plan’s roadmap is laid out in a newly released white paper, and will continue China’s ambitious advances in aerospace.
“In the next five years, China will integrate space science, technology and applications while pursuing a new development philosophy, building new development models and meeting the requirements for high-quality development,” the white paper, entitled China’s Space Program: A 2021 Perspective, reads. .
Over the past few decades, the bamboo-curtain nation has also focused on expanding its space capabilities, increasing the frequency and scope of launches, and pushing into new areas such as robotic exploration of Mars.
China has also been carrying out a long-term lunar exploration campaign, which will send a series of landers and rovers to the lunar surface every few years.
Quoted Space, in 2019 it became the first to land a rover on the far side of the Moon. In 2020, the country also brought samples of the Moon back to Earth.
In 2021, China will launch the core module of a new space station to be built in orbit around Earth. There are currently three astronauts living at the station.
Before China tried to send people to the lunar surface, the country first planned to continue studying the Moon with its space vehicle, the probe.
The white paper details plans to send two additional robotic spacecraft to the Moon over the next five years, which will study the lunar polar region, the area of the Moon’s surface known as water.
It is not clear when China plans to complete the space station, or when the target of a human landing on the Moon’s surface will be.
Although the Moon has always been a big focus for China, the country is also eyeing exploration of other planets in the Solar System, as quoted Space.
China hopes to launch probes to near-Earth asteroids within the next five years, as well as learn how to send spacecraft to the Jupiter system and to Mars, with plans to bring back samples from the Red Planet.
Quoted The Verge, this projection becomes a fairly long task for the next half a decade. But with this white paper, China has made it clear that space exploration is a priority.
The white paper lists many other space goals, including building China’s space station, updating its satellite technology, improving its space transportation and rocket systems, creating new rocket engines.
(life/one)
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