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HELSINKI — China’s top space contractor is working to make the country a leading space power with a focus on developing capabilities, space infrastructure and self-reliance.
Wu Yanshen, chairman of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the country’s main space contractor, outlined a number of goals in a lecture broadcasting by China Central Television on December 20.
Among the ambitions are known plans for a manned moon landing together with another research and transportation goals, while emphasizing the importance of space infrastructure and developing capabilities such as on-orbit servicing, building space management systems.
The plans are presented as the next strategic plan of Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping to build a strong space nation. The plan is being developed as part of a broader Xi-led push toward technological and economic self-reliance amid a US that is taking steps to “disengage” from economic engagement with China.
The overarching ambition is for China to become one of the world’s major aviation powers by 2030 and to become a fully comprehensive space power by 2045. CASC, ranked 322 on this year’s Fortune 500 list, has previously said it plans to make China a global leader in space technology by 2045, a focus that some see as challenge in the USA
Major topics focus on space transportation, space exploration, management, and national civil space infrastructure; the latter probably combines Earth observation, telecommunications and constellation navigation and positioning services and provides global coverage.
Space transportation emphasizes the development of smart and reusable launch vehicles to provide economical, fast and reliable access to space.
CASC aims to comprehensively improve China’s ability to use space, continuing to “upgrade and improve our space infrastructure, build an on-orbit service and maintenance system, actively promote the construction of the next-generation space infrastructure system,” according to the machine translation, and achieve effective, cheap transport until 2030.
The giant space and defense contractor is already working on reusable rockets, including the Long March 8R, Long March 9 and suborbital i orbital spacecraft.
The presentation also states the need to build a system of space law and management of the space environment, as well as the development of capabilities for information on the space domain and removal of space debris.
Wu said there were challenges, particularly including conditions created by the United States’ “resumption of great power competition,” the so-called “Wolf Clause,” which keeps out the International Space Station project and Chinese aerospace companies adding to U.S. export blacklists. lists. Wu also believes that the US is trying to seize strategic resources, including specific orbits, locations and radio frequencies.
The presentation emphasizes both long-term goals with clearly strong political support, but also that China is focused on achieving goals and developing capabilities independently, rather than relying heavily on international cooperation.
As for more immediate goals, Wu Yansheng listed plans for a manned lunar landing by 2030establishment International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) in the 2030s, after three Chang’e robotic landing missions during this decade. China, however, is looking partnerships for IRLS, which will be developed in parallel and separately from the US Artemis program.
China is also planning a mission to return a sample to Mars in the “next 10 to 15 years”, suggesting a possible delay previously mentioned plans to deliver material from the Red Planet to Earth in 2031.
Missions targeted at head and tail of the heliopause and, separately, Jupiter and Neptune are also recorded. Also mentioned is the CASC exoplanet study program called “Project Miiin”.
CASC this year Finished China’s Tiangong Space Station manufactures and then launches three modules into low Earth orbit. China also has plans to expand Tiangongstarting with the second core module and docking hub.
CASC has previously announced big plans for space, including a roadmap for space transportation by 2045, and plans to develop a $10 trillion Earth-Moon Economic Zone.
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