China aims for dark side of the moon
Print Edition
CHINA vowed yesterday to speed up the development of its space industry as it set out plans to become the first country to soft land a probe on the far side of the moon by around 2018, and launch its first Mars probe by 2020.
“To explore the vast cosmos, develop the space industry and build China into a space power is a dream we pursue unremittingly,” reads a white paper setting out space strategy for the next five years. It says China aims to use space for peaceful purposes and to guarantee national security, and to carry out cutting-edge scientific research.
The white paper, released by the State Council’s information office, points to the growing ambitions of an already rapidly advancing space program.
While Russia and the United States have more experience in manned space travel, China’s program has made steady progress in a comparatively short time.
Since China conducted its first crewed space mission in 2003, it has staged a spacewalk and landed a rover on the moon in 2013 — the first time humans had soft landed anything on the moon since the 1970s.
Last month, two astronauts returned from a monthlong stay aboard China’s Tiangong-2 experimental space station, the country’s sixth and longest crewed mission. A fully functioning, permanently crewed space station is on course to begin operations six years from now and is expected to run for at least a decade.
The white paper reiterates China’s plans to launch its first Mars probe by 2020, saying it would explore and bring back samples from the red planet, explore the Jupiter system and “conduct research into major scientific questions such as the origin and evolution of the solar system, and search for extraterrestrial life.”
The paper says the Chang’e-4 lunar probe will help shed light on the formation and evolution of the moon.
He Qisong, a space security expert at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, said that achieving the first soft landing on the far side of the moon is a new goal. It indicates that China has mastered the underlying technology needed to land on a specific area of the lunar surface, he said.
“China never talks big and says something it’s unable to achieve,” he said.
China’s space program must help protect national security, but China is dedicated to the peaceful use of space and opposes a space arms race, the paper says.
The space program is an important part of the country’s overall development strategy, it says.
“China always adheres to the principle of the use of outer space for peaceful purposes, and opposes the weaponization of or an arms race in outer space,” it adds.
The program must also “meet the demands of economic, scientific and technological development, national security and social progress,” the paper adds, without elaborating on the security part.
“Over the past 60 years of remarkable development since its space industry was established in 1956, China has made great achievements in this sphere, including the development of atomic and hydrogen bombs, missiles, man-made satellites, manned spaceflight and lunar probes,” it says.
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