China’s Space Program Shifts to High Gear

by Peter Galace

Beijing, China, July 10, 2013--As part of its comprehensive national development strategy, China in 2003, outlined its ten-year space goals. Some of its more important space goals include — an Earth observation system, an independently operated satellite broadcasting and telecommunications system, upgraded overall capacity of launch vehicles, a manned spaceflight, and a complete R&D and test system for manned space projects.

Before the decade was completed, most of these goals have been achieved. Thus in 2010, the China National Space Administration, which directs China’s space program, shifted into high gear. It wanted to build a manned space station by 2020 and send a spacecraft to the Moon and Mars.

Last month, ten years after it first announced its lofty goals, China showed what it is now capable of. It successfully launched a manned space mission from June 11–26, continuing its goal of building its own space station. Shenzhou-10 spacecraft lofted from a launch center in the Gobi desert, and three Chinese astronauts, two men and one woman, returned safely to Earth after completing their country's longest manned space voyage.

During its journey, Shenzhou-10, or "Divine Vessel" in Chinese, twice docked with the orbiting space station Tiangong-1 ("Heavenly Palace"), once manually and once through an automated operation. The crew spent 12 days aboard the space station, conducting technical tests and medical experiments, while one of the astronauts delivered a physics lesson in zero-gravity via video link to more than 60 million Chinese middle school students.

Tiangong-1 was launched in September 2011 with a two-year operational lifespan. The Shenzhou-10's mission was the second and final manned voyage to the space station, following China's first manned docking mission a year ago. The mission made China the only third country, after U.S. and Russia, that is able to send its own astronauts independently in space.

The mission was broadly hailed by Chinese leaders and citizens alike as a prestige-building demonstration of China's growing technological expertise. After all, the mission was China's fifth manned mission to space in a decade. It was the first during the presidency of Xi Jinping, who took office in March this year. Xi proclaimed that “the space dream is part of the dream to make China stronger. With the development of space programs, the Chinese people will take bigger strides to explore further in space,” he said.

The Shenzhou-10 mission is but a part of Beijing's ambitious multi-billion dollar program to establish a manned space station by 2020 and continue developing its own space industry. After it sent its first astronaut into space in 2003, it has no doubt made rapid advances in the intervening decade. China does not expect to put a man on the moon until after 2020, but plans to send a more advanced space lab, Tiangong-2, into orbit in 2015.

Rapid Progress in a Decade

China's space industry was developed despite weak infrastructure industries and a relatively backward scientific and technological level. More significantly, it was able to carry out space activities almost independently, scoring a series of important achievements within a relatively short span of time. And at a time when China is making these strides, the U.S., Europe and Japan are so absorbed with their economic problems that they can only brood quietly.

Today, China ranks among the most advanced countries in the world in many important technological fields, such as satellite recovery, single-rocket multi-satellite launch, cryogenic-fuelled rockets, strap-on rockets, geo-stationary satellite launch, and Telemetry, Tracking and Control (TT&C). China also gained significant achievements in the development and application of remote-sensing satellites and telecommunications satellites, and in manned spacecraft testing and space micro-gravity experiments.

The whole world has started noticing China’s space achievements. In 2009, the U.S. Space Foundation awarded China with its annual Space Achievement Award for significant contributions in advancing the exploration, development, or utilization of space.

China earned the award after it launched on Sept. 25, 2008, Shenzhou-7, China's third manned space mission and first three-man mission. Astronaut, or 'Taikonaut' Zhai performed a 20-minute spacewalk, making China the world's third nation to independently carry out a spacewalk.

The crew also conducted a number of experiments, including releasing a miniaturized satellite that took photos and videos near the spacecraft, maneuvered to about 120 miles away and then returned to orbit the spacecraft after the return module had separated and re-entered the atmosphere.

Morris Jones, an Australian space analyst, told the Voice of America News recently that China’s expanding space program is part of an effort to show the Chinese people, and the world, the country’s rising power. “If it wants to be a super power class nation, developing a very strong space program is one way it can project that image both internally and externally to the outside world,” he said.

Still Behind U.S., Russia

But despite its numerous successes, China’s space program has yet to achieve capabilities reached by the U.S. and the Soviet Union decades ago. But China’s achievements could not also be downplayed so easily.

Space observers note that China’s recent flight is not to some sprawling orbiting laboratory like the International Space Station that Americans built but rather to a tiny, humble one-module space station that is a little over one-tenth of the size of the U.S. Skylab and Russian Salyut stations of decades past.

China’s space lab, Tiangong-1, also has a temporary lifespan. It is merely a training module designed to help the Chinese learn the techniques needed to run a space station. It has received three manned missions and will eventually be decommissioned. But in its place will rise Tiangong-2 in 2015 or 2016, with a fully-fledged Chinese space station due for completion by 2020.

But while China’s space achievements may still be decades behind U.S. and Russia, it is making headway, nonetheless, and could, in the future take away much of the business related to the space industry away from the West.

In satellite launches, for example, China is beginning to master its rocketry technology. In April this year, China’s Long March rocket successfully launched four satellites – a high-resolution imaging payload, Ecuador’s first satellite, and two CubeSats, one built by students in Turkey, and a technology demonstration platform from Argentina. 

China’s Long March in Rocketry

China’s Long March rockets experienced two major launch disasters in 1995 and 1996, casting a shadow over the Chinese space program. The first occurred when a Long March 2E rocket, carrying the Apstar 2 telecoms satellite, blew up shortly after launch from the Xichang space centre where six people are believed to have died. The second, in February 1996, was far more deadly. A Long March 3B rocket, carrying Intelsat 708 exploded 22 seconds into the flight and crashed into a nearby village. Chinese newspapers reported less than 100 casualties.

But China’s rocket technology has since recovered. For 13 years, between August 1996 and August 2009, Long March is reported to have 75 consecutive successful launches. Today, China claims a record of more than 100 successful launches.

Next year, China will push through with the maiden voyage of its Long March-5 large-thrust carrier rocket after Chinese scientist completed major part of its production. With a maximum low Earth-orbit payload capacity of 25 tons and high Earth-orbit payload capacity of 14 tons, Long March-5 rockets will be among the world's leader in payload capacity and reliability, Chinese space officials declared. They added that the 25-ton maximum capacity is 2.5 times that of in-service Long March rockets.

With more success and increasing reliability, it is likely that China will be able to entice more and more foreign customers to use their more inexpensive rockets for future satellite launches. There is no more doubt China is emerging as a relative competitor in selected areas of space technology.

"In many areas, on launch vehicles [the Chinese are] almost as good as anybody,” Richard Holdaway, Director of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) Space division, one of the UK's closest collaborators with the Chinese space program, told wired.co.uk recently.

China is poised to become an international player at least in the launch services market and perhaps as a niche provider of low-cost satellites to other developing countries.  The only hindrance to the Chinese getting more launch contracts are the export control restrictions placed by International Traffic on Arms Regulations (ITAR).

Conclusion

As in the U.S. and the former Soviet Union—the race to space development can produce many civilian economic spin-offs for the Chinese space and telecommunications industry.   This will make Chinese companies very competitive globally in areas such as satellite launches, satellite equipment and components and even in the near future in satellite manufacturing.  We should be able to see the economic dividends very shortly from China’s march into being a space power. This time, the West should not be caught off guard.

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Peter I. Galace is  the Senior Contributing Editor of Satellite Markets and Research. He writes extensively on telecommunications and satellite developments in Asia for numerous publications and research firms. He can be reached at peter@satellitemarkets.com