China launches six-month manned mission as it consolidates its position as a global space power

Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China (CNN) – China launched a three-person crew into space in the early hours of Saturday local time, an important step for the country’s young space program, which is fast becoming one of the most advanced in the world.
The three astronauts took off in the Shenzhou-13 spacecraft after midnight local time, launched by a Long March 2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi desert, located in the Inner Mongolia region.

The spacecraft will dock with the new Chinese space station, Tiangong (which means Heavenly Palace), six and a half hours after launch. They will live and work at the station for 183 days, about six months, the longest mission in the country to date.

The crew is made up of astronauts Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guanfu, who will spend time testing the station’s technology and conducting spacewalks.

Zhai, the mission commander, conducted China’s first spacewalk in 2008 and has received the honorary title of “Space Hero” from the government.

This will be Ye’s first mission in space; He is currently a second-tier astronaut in the Army’s Astronaut Brigade.

Wang, who also received an honorary degree after participating in a mission in 2013, will be China’s first female astronaut aboard the space station, and the first Chinese woman to conduct a spacewalk.

Six months is the standard length of a mission for many countries, but it will be an important opportunity for Chinese astronauts to get used to an extended stay in space and help prepare future astronauts to do the same.

“First, any manned mission is significant, if only because human space travel remains a risky business,” said Dean Cheng, senior fellow at the Davis Institute for Homeland Security and Foreign Policy. “This will undoubtedly be their longest mission, which is quite impressive considering how young their manned spaceflight program is.”

This is the second manned mission during the construction of the space station, which China plans to have fully manned and operational by December 2022. The first manned mission, a three-month stay for three other astronauts, was completed last month.

There are six more missions scheduled before the end of next year, including two manned missions, two lab modules, and two cargo missions.

“For China, their manned space flights are still at an early stage, as they have been doing this for less than 20 years … and in less than 10 missions,” Cheng added. “In the past, the Chinese organized a crewed flight every two or three years. Now, they send them every few months.”

“If the Chinese keep this pace … it reflects a major shift in the pace of missions for their manned spaceflight efforts.”

Preparations for take off

CNN had unusual access to the launch this week, including a series of highly organized events and press conferences on the eve of the launch.

The launch site appears to be in the middle of nowhere, in the Gobi desert, hours away from the city, surrounded by arid plains of sand and rock. There is only a road running through the middle of the desert, and then a swath of nothing around it, just a few low mountains in the distance.

The road near the site was lined with signs that warned that it was a military zone in which unauthorized persons were not allowed to enter. The country’s manned space program is overseen by a military body, and many of the launch facilities and satellites are managed directly by the People’s Liberation Army.

Arriving at the launch center was like entering a miniature city, with long roads, dormitories, and stadiums. A billboard had the image of President Xi Jinping, along with the words “Chinese dream, space dream.”

China’s space program was late to the game. It was established in the early 1970s, years after US astronaut Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. But the chaos of the Chinese Cultural Revolution slowed the nation’s space effort, and progress was postponed until the early 1990s.

Space administrators chose two classes of astronauts in 1998 and 2010, laying the foundation for a rapid acceleration of space missions. With the help of the economic reforms of the 1980s, China’s space program quietly progressed until the launch of the first manned mission in 2003.

Since then, the government has invested billions of dollars in the space program, and the payoff has been obvious. China successfully landed an exploratory rover on the Moon last December and another on Mars in May. The first module of the Tiangong space station was launched in April. Last week, an international team of scientists released its findings on the lunar rocks that China brought to Earth.

“What is truly impressive about the Chinese space program is how quickly it has advanced, on all major fronts, from a fairly low base in the 1990s,” said David Burbach, associate professor of National Security Affairs at the United States Naval War College.

“The European Space Agency, Russia, India and Israel have all suffered failures of probes to the Moon or Mars in recent years; China was successful with both in the first attempts,” Burbach told CNN, by email. Although the US still has the most important space program in the world, he said, “there is no question that China is today the world’s No. 2 space power.”

China’s ambitions span years into the future, with grand plans for space exploration, research and commercialization. One of the biggest projects will be the construction of a joint China-Russia research station at the Moon’s south pole by 2035, a facility that will be open to international participation.

Politics in space

Even in space, you can’t escape Earth politics.

Chinese astronauts have long been unable to access the International Space Station due to political objections and US legislative restrictions.

As the Chinese space program has expanded, some countries, such as Russia, have reached out to collaborate, but others remain cautious. It is not clear, for example, whether the European Union will cooperate with China in the space arena, especially as skepticism in Europe regarding China is increasing after several diplomatic frictions and recent controversies over politics and human rights, Cheng said.

The United States, for its part, continues to remain on the sidelines. This is not a total ban on interaction, Cheng said, for example, American and Chinese scientists can chat at international conferences, but the 2011 Wolf Amendment effectively closes the door to true bilateral cooperation in space by banning the NASA to invest money in interactions with China.

One of the reasons that space research cannot be separated from Earth politics, and why the question is so complicated, is because “the Chinese space program is heavily influenced, and its human and lunar programs are overseen, by the China’s army, “Cheng said. “Cooperating with China in space means cooperating with China’s military.”

But Burbach, the professor, said the divide between the countries “goes too far,” potentially blocking valuable scientific progress.

“As it stands, American and Chinese scientists will not even be able to exchange moon rock samples, something the United States and the Soviets did during the Cold War,” Burbach wrote in an email.

Although he said the coldness is “understandable” given the deterioration in the US-China relationship, Burbach added that “many US allies are willing to collaborate with China on space exploration, and the US probably will not. Earn a lot by taking such an uncompromising line. “

China may not need American help at this time. China is already significantly ahead of Europe, and is quickly catching up with the United States, he said.

“The development of China’s manned space flight is based on our own plan. We have our strategy and our plan,” said Lin Xiqiang, deputy director general of the China Manned Space Agency. “We don’t think about comparing ourselves to others.”

And although it has been excluded from the ISS, the Chinese space station could one day be the main one in operation, as NASA could withdraw the ISS in 2030.

If the United States “cannot or does not want to maintain a human presence in space,” China could gain an advantage and get ahead, Cheng said.

That leaves a gap for China to fill, and even if the ISS remains open, the Tiangong space station could become a major rival. China is likely to allow foreign astronauts from different countries to stay at the station and conduct experiments, increasing its “international prestige and diplomacy, as well as that of the United States,” Burbach said.