China’s space plan highlights commitment to space exploration, analysts say

Chinese authorities recently released a 25-year space exploration plan that details five major scientific themes and 17 priority areas for scientific discovery with one goal: to make China a world leader in space by 2050 and a key competitor to the U.S. in space during decades. to come.

Last week, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the China National Space Administration and the China Manned Space Agency jointly released a space exploration plan for 2024 to 2050.

It includes the search for extraterrestrial life, the exploration of Mars, Venus and Jupiter, sending space teams to the Moon and building an international lunar research station by 2025.

Clayton Swope, deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says the plan highlights China’s long-term commitment and also answers some lingering questions.

“I think a lot of experts wondered whether China would continue to invest in space, especially in science and exploration, given the many economic uncertainties in China… but this is a sign that they are committed,” Swope said.

The plan reinforces a “commitment to really looking at science and space exploration in the long term and not just the short term,” he added.

The plan outlines Beijing’s goal of sending astronauts to the Moon by 2030, obtaining and retrieving the first samples from Mars, and successfully completing a mission to the Jupiter system in the coming years. It also describes three phases of development, each with specific goals in terms of space exploration and important scientific discoveries.

The extensive plan is not just an assertion that Beijing can compete with the US in high-tech industries, it is also a way to boost national pride, analysts say.

“Space in particular has enormous public awareness, public pride,” says Nicholas Eftimiades, a retired senior intelligence officer and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank. “It encourages the Chinese people, gives them a strong sense of nationalism and superiority, and that is the main focus of the Beijing government.”

Swope agrees.

“I think it (China’s long-term space plan) is a manifestation of China’s interest and desire, from the point of view of national prestige and honor, to really show that it is an actor on the international stage, on the same level as the United States. United,” he said.

Antonia Hmaidi, a senior analyst at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, told VOA in an email response that “China’s space focus dates back to the 1960s” and that “China has also been very successful in meeting its own objectives and deadlines. ”

In recent years, China has carried out several successful space science missions, including Chang’e-4, which marked the world’s first soft landing and journey to the far side of the Moon, Change’e-5, a mission that returned a sample from the moon back in Beijing for the first time, and Tianwen-1, a space mission that resulted in Chinese spacecraft leaving marks on Mars.

In addition to these space missions, Beijing has implemented several programs that aim to increase space-related scientific discovery, namely through the launch of several space satellites.

Since 2011, China has developed and launched scientific satellites, including the Dark Matter Particle Explorer, Space-Scale Quantum Experiments, Space-Based Advanced Solar Observatory, and the Einstein Probe.

While China continues to make progress in space exploration and scientific discovery, according to Swope, it still has a long way to go before it catches up with the United States.

“China is undeniably the second space power in the world today, behind the United States,” he said. “The United States is still by far the most important in many measures and metrics, including in science and exploration.”

Eftimiades said one of the main reasons the United States has maintained its lead in the space race is the success of Washington’s private commercial aerospace companies.

“U.S. private industry has leapfrogged China,” Eftimiades said. “There is no type of industrial control, industrial plan. In fact, Congress and the administration avoid it altogether.”

Unlike the United States, large space entities in China are often state-owned, such as the China Aerospace Cooperation, Eftimiades said.

He adds that an advantage of China’s space entities being state-owned is the Chinese government’s ability to “direct its industries toward specific objectives.” At the same time, having bureaucracy involved with state-owned companies leads to less “cutting-edge technology”.

This year, China has focused on increasing its space presence relative to the US by carrying out more orbital launches.

Beijing planned to carry out 100 orbital launches this year, according to state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, which would carry out 70 of them. However, as of October 15, China has completed 48 orbital launches.

Last week, SpaceX announced that it launched its 100th rocket of the year and had another launch just hours later. The private company intends to carry out 148 launches this year.

Earlier this year, the US Department of Defense implemented its first Commercial Space Integration Strategy, which outlined the department’s efforts to utilize privately produced technologies and apply their uses for US national security purposes.

In a statement released regarding the US strategic plan, the Department of Defense explained its strategy to work closely with private and commercial space companies that are known for being innovative and having scalable production.

According to the statement, officials say “the strategy is based on the premise that the commercial space sector’s innovative capabilities, scalable production, and rapid rates of technological upgrades provide pathways to increase the resiliency of DOD’s space capabilities and strengthen deterrence.”

Many space technologies have military applications, Swope said.

“A lot of things that are done in space have a dual use, so (space technologies) can be used primarily for scientific purposes, but they can also be used to design, build and test some type of weapons technology,” Swope said.

Hmaidi says China’s newest space plan stands out for what it doesn’t have.

“For me, the most interesting and striking part of China’s newest space plan was the narrow focus on basic science at the expense of military objectives,” she told VOA in an email. “However, we know from open source research that China is also very active in military space development.”

“This plan contains only a part of China’s space planning, namely the part that will probably not have direct military utility, not to mention other missions with direct military utility, such as its Internet program in low Earth orbit,” Hmaidi explained.