China's Space Plans

Last week, the Chinese government released a 17 page white paper document entitled, "China's Space Activities in 2011."  The paper is a brief summing up of the last five years in Chinese space activities, and a preview of what to expect in the next five year space program.  While the paper isn't mind blowing in its scope or material, it does touch on some interesting points.

The accomplishments of the Chinese space program have been impressive in the last five years, and the paper focuses on the most noteworthy achievements.  Since 2006, the Long March series of rockets, China's workhorse, has had 67 successful launches, making it one of the world's most reliable launch systems.  In 2007 and 2010, China launched Chang'e-1 and Chang'e-2, respectively, which marked the nation's first serious foray into deep space exploration.  Both spacecraft successfully orbited, mapped, and studied the Moon. In 2008, China successfully launched three men aboard Shenzhou-7, a mission that saw the country's first spacewalk.  And, most recently, China launched its first space lab, Tiangong-1, and successfully remotely docked a Shenzhou spacecraft with the orbiting lab.  The paper also mentions a few scientific accomplishments, like experiments in physics and materials sciences.

Chinese astronaut, Zhai Zhigang, waves to the camera during his 2007 spacewalk (BBC).

The paper goes on to lay out a general plan for China's space program for the next five years.  A continuation of the space lab program, in preparation for a full-fledged space station is highlighted.  This next year will see another unmanned docking with Tiangong-1, as well as one manned mission to the lab.  The Chinese lunar program will move forward as well, with a plan to do a soft landing, followed by a lunar rover, and culminating in a soil return mission.  China will also develop several new rockets in its Long March series, including a "heavy lift" variant which proposes to launch 25 tons into low Earth orbit.

Possible configurations of the proposed Long March 5 family of rockets (Jirka Dlouhy).

One of the surprising things about the document is how much emphasis is put on international cooperation.  Every international space agreement China has entered into is detailed, from commercial deals with the developing world, to multi-national science missions with Europe, to Russia's cooperation with China on their manned program.  This could be a sign that China is opening up more, and by highlighting the work they have already conducted with other nations, they hope to cozy up to bigger space partners (maybe the US?).

Not surprisingly, there are some inconsistencies with what the Chinese government says, and what it does.  The paper highlights China's efforts to mitigate and track space debris.  However, in 2007 the Chinese tested an anti-satellite weapon, destroying one of their own aging weather satellites.  This incident created over 2,300 pieces of trackable space debris.  While this stunt may have demonstrated China's satellite killing ability to the world, it created more space debris than any other single event in history.  Debris from this incident has already threatened the ISS once, and will continue to be a problem for all space faring nations decades to come.

Propaganda aside, China is indeed pushing forward in all aspects of their space program, and this latest document is an interesting glimpse of where China is headed in space.  Let's hope they keep to their commitment of greater international cooperation, an increase in space science, and a reduction in dangerous space debris.

Read the full text of the white paper, here.