China outlines plans to put astronauts on the Moon and Mars

Thirty years ago, the Chinese government began a secret plan for its space program, including the main goal of building a space station by 2020.

At the time, the country was 11 years away from sending its first astronaut into space, and its efforts were going through a rough patch: Chinese rockets failed in 1991, 1992, 1995 and twice in 1996. The worst failure, in 1996, was a rocket that tipped over on its side, flew in the wrong direction and exploded 22 seconds after launch, covering a village in debris and burning fuel, which killed or injured at least 63 people.

While some countries’ grand spaceflight plans were many years behind schedule, China completed the in-orbit assembly of its Tiangong space station in late October, 22 months later than planned. And on November 29, the Shenzhou 15 mission lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center deep in the Gobi Desert in Inner Mongolia and carried three astronauts to the space station to begin permanent occupation of the outpost.

These human flight achievements, combined with recent space probes to the Moon and Mars, add to the evidence that China is running a constant space marathon, rather than competing in a close race with the United States. That the Chinese space program is moving towards its long-term goals was reinforced during a rare visit by foreign media to the heavily guarded rocket base in the desert for the Nov. 29 launch — including lengthy interviews with senior Chinese space officials. for The New York Times.

The Pentagon predicted in August that China would surpass American capabilities in space by 2045.

“I think it’s entirely possible that they could catch up and overtake us, absolutely,” said Lieutenant General Nina Armagno, US Space Force director of staff, at a conference in Sydney (Australia) the day before launch. from Shenzhou 15. “The progress they’ve made has been impressive – incredibly fast.”

The Chinese program rolled off the starting line in 1986, decades after the height of the US-Soviet space race. That’s when Deng Xiaoping, then the supreme leader of China, approved Project 863, a science and technology development program that included plans for a manned spacecraft.

The program began to pick up speed in 1992 with Project 921. “The goal set at that time was to complete construction of the Chinese space station around 2020,” said Zhou Jianping, chief designer of the manned space program.

Despite the initial embarrassment as the rockets kept exploding instead of reaching space, Beijing picked up the pace in the years to come. American companies, which were looking for a cheap way to put satellites in space, helped China solve its rocket quality problems. In 2003, Boeing eventually agreed to pay $32 million in fines for violations of US arms export controls by a company it had acquired, Hughes Space and Communications.

Congress ended up barring US space agencies in 2011 from spending any money to cooperate in space with China, except in limited circumstances. The ban, enacted in response to concerns over technology theft and human rights violations, blocked any chance of inviting China to join the International Space Station.

Frank Wolf, a retired Republican congressman who pushed for the legislation to pass, said in a recent email that he still believes it is necessary. “In short, we shouldn’t be collaborating with China,” he said.

China has also drawn heavily on Russian experience over the years, from the founding of Jiuquan in 1958 as a military base for the development of its first intercontinental ballistic missiles. The spacecraft carrying the Shenzhou missions looks a lot like Russia’s Soyuz.

The country’s space authorities say that all components of its spacecraft are manufactured in China. But they recognize that they have benefited from cooperation over the years with their northern neighbor.

“China’s manned spaceflight has also had many exchanges with Russia in the development process — 100% localization does not mean no exchanges or cooperation,” Zhou said.

China is now pursuing its own programs and has not partnered with Russia for its new space station.

After major strides in recent years, half a dozen Chinese space officials outlined their plans for the coming years in interviews at the launch center, which sits on a vast frozen expanse of gray gravel in northwest China, nearly a four-hour drive from the city. nearest big.

The Tiangong space station weighs nearly 100 tons. It is little more than the American Skylab launched in 1973, and less than the Mir space station that the Soviet Union began to assemble in space in 1986.

Tiangong is being portrayed by state media to the Chinese public as a three-bedroom house in the sky. Still, it’s much smaller than the International Space Station, which weighs around 450 tons and seats seven people.

Starting with the arrival of the three astronauts from Shenzhou 15 on Nov. 30, China now plans for its space station to be manned continuously by at least three astronauts. That will expand to six during their one-week overlap every six months when a replacement crew arrives — still short of the usual seven-astronaut occupancy on the International Space Station.

Ji Qiming, assistant director general of China’s Manned Space Program engineering bureau, said astronauts from Shenzhou 15 will first debug equipment aboard the newly completed space station. They “will complete the unlocking, installation and testing of 15 science experiment racks, and carry out more than 40 space science experiments and technical tests in the field of space science research and applications, space medicine, space technology and so on,” he said. , without providing details.

As early as next year, the Chinese space station will have a separately launched telescope, Xuntian, orbiting nearby to survey the universe at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths — in many ways a more sophisticated version of NASA’s 32-year-old Hubble Space Telescope. .

The development of reusable rocket technology in China has become even more important after considerable international criticism of its Long March 5B rockets. China allowed the huge thrusters of these rockets to fall uncontrollably to Earth while sending each of the three modules of the Tiangong space station into orbit.

R. Nicholas Burns, the US ambassador to China, said in an interview that he encouraged China “to be more cautious about the uncontrolled re-entry of large rocket bodies.”

Despite all these difficulties, China intends to maintain its long-term space plan.

“Landing on the Moon, landing on Mars, is a very significant progress in the development of human civilization,” Zhou said. “We can understand and realize its added value step by step. But its role in the development of our human civilization is enormous, so it’s worth our efforts — it’s worth fighting for.”

_{Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves}