The China Aerospace White Paper, released every five years, is an important channel for domestic and foreign countries to understand China's policies and guidelines in the field of aerospace, existing achievements and future plans. This year is no exception, but compared with the past, the "2021 China Aerospace" white paper released on January 28 has special significance.
China's space station construction continues to make progress
As we can see, China is already a veritable space power, the number of annual space launches has ranked first in the world many times, and the categories involved in space activities cover manned spaceflight, lunar exploration and deep space exploration, space science, earth and space environment monitoring, satellite navigation, Earth observation, satellite communications, etc. The scale of upstream and downstream industries of space activities is also getting larger and larger, and it has been able to serve national economic and social life to a large extent.
The achievements and important roles of China's aerospace institute have been widely recognized and supported by the state and society. However, China is not yet a real space power, from a space power to a space power, it still needs to make greater progress and breakthroughs in many fields.
In the five years from 2016 to 2021, China's aerospace industry has made world-renowned achievements, which can be regarded as five years from a space power to a space power. It is precisely because of this that the prospects depicted in the "2021 China Aerospace" white paper allow us to truly see the specific measures to become a world space power, and the dawn of space power has appeared on the horizon not far away.
The "Fat Five" launch shocked the moment
Space powers have important signs or indicators in various fields, of which the round-trip transportation capacity between space and earth is an important one. In the past five years, through the development of a new generation of carrier rockets, the mainland has brought China's space launch capability up to date with the world's advanced level. Among them, the 25-ton low-Earth orbit carrying capacity of the Long March 5 rocket and the 14-ton geosynchronous transfer orbit carrying capacity enable the mainland to carry out the same low-Earth space and deep space exploration activities as other space powers in the world.
We must also see that the Saturn V heavy carrier rocket developed by the United States achieved a carrying capacity of more than 120 tons in the 1960s, the Energy carrier rocket developed by the Soviet Union also reached a 100-ton carrying capacity in the 1980s, and the United States is still developing heavy carrier rockets such as the "Space Launch System" and the "Starship". Therefore, the mainland's new generation of manned launch vehicles and heavy carrier rockets with a diameter of more than 9 meters will be an important symbol of China's goal of achieving a space power in the field of space transportation.
While increasing the carrying capacity, the unit cost per kilogram of load transported is also a very important indicator. In order to catch up with the international advanced level, the 2021 China Aerospace white paper also clearly puts forward the goal of developing reusable delivery vehicles, which will lay a more solid foundation for China to carry out larger-scale space activities.
Manned spaceflight has always been one of the most remarkable space events. In 2021, the mainland laid a good foundation for the construction of the Chinese space station by implementing the launch of the Core Module of Tianhe, as well as two launches of the Shenzhou manned spacecraft and the two Tianzhou cargo spacecraft. In 2022, the completion and normal operation of China's Tiangong space station will be an important symbol of the mainland becoming a space power.
Chinese astronauts landed on the moon
The United States achieved the feat of manned moon landing in 1969, defeating the Soviet Union in the Cold War space race and becoming the world's first space power. The person in charge of China's aerospace has repeatedly expressed his desire to carry out manned moon landings on many occasions, and Chinese astronaut Wang Yaping said in an interview with the media that he hopes to be able to walk on the moon in the future.
At present, the mainland is carrying out in-depth demonstration and key technical research on the manned lunar landing plan, as well as the first flight of a new generation of test manned spacecraft that has been completed before, all of which are preparing for China's manned lunar landing.
In the field of lunar exploration and deep space exploration, China has reached the standards of space powers in some aspects, such as the Chang'e-4 probe achieved the first soft landing on the far side of the moon, the Chang'e-5 probe brought back 1731 grams of lunar samples, several times more than the sum of the Soviet Union's three lunar samples, and the successful landing of Zhu Rong on Mars made China the second country in the world after the United States to have the ability to achieve a soft landing on Mars.
Zhu Rong rover successfully landed on Mars
In the future, China will continue to carry out more in-depth lunar exploration activities with the Sino-Russian Lunar Research Station as the core, and the planned Mars sample return, asteroid exploration and Jupiter exploration will also enable China to meet the standards of the world's space power in these fields.
In the field of space science, China started from the "double satellite program" in cooperation with Europe, and the past five years have been fully rolled out on a large scale, covering fields ranging from quantum key distribution, dark matter detection, solar observation, and space magnetic field detection. In the future, the mainland will continue to develop various space observatories and space science satellites, and strive to catch up with the world's space powers in terms of quantity and quality.
International cooperation is an important part of China's space activities, and in the past China's space white papers, it was clear that in-depth international cooperation was regarded as an important symbol of the realization of a space power. "2021 China's Space" white paper gives a lot of specific measures in the future in international cooperation, in addition to the Joint Lunar Research Station led by China and Russia, China's space station is also an important international cooperation platform, we look forward to seeing visiting international friends after the completion of the Chinese space station.
Joint training of Chinese and foreign astronauts
The "2021 China Aerospace" white paper also clearly puts forward the concept of building a community with a shared future for mankind in the field of space. As Wu Yanhua, deputy director of the China National Space Administration, said, in the past, China's space activities focused on mastering technology, and now our space technology has been able to make important contributions to China's economic and social development, and provide services for other countries in the world in the future, and China will also benefit from the space activities of other countries.
Looking back at the history of China's aerospace development, it is from the process of "running with" advanced countries in the past to being able to achieve "running together" in many fields. In particular, in the past five years highlighted by the "2021 China Aerospace" white paper, there have been some areas that can achieve "leading".
To achieve its goal of becoming a space power, China needs to "lead" in more areas. Although the white paper is only more than 10,000 words, the amount of information is extremely dense, and the future plans listed are all words and words. Such a specific description really allows us to see the specific road map of China from a space power to a space power.
(This article was originally published in the first edition of China Aerospace News Feitian Science Weekly on February 12)
Source/ China Aerospace News official WeChat public account
Text/Yang Yuguang
Editor/Yang Sishuang
Audit/Yang Jie
Executive Producer/Xu Chunmei
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