During China’s National Day, there was a lot of media exposure about China’s construction of the space station “Tiangong-1” that attracted particular attention. China announced that it would complete the construction of the space station within two years.
At present, the international space station field is roughly in the “U.S.-led multinational cooperation” state. Industry observers say that in the field of space technology, the United States has been in a technological monopoly, China’s move to build a space station with great fanfare obviously has the meaning of challenging the United States, it marks the U.S.-China competition from the trade war, science and technology war has been extended to the space war.
Chinese media coverage of the space station project has been extremely detailed, including the construction schedule, timeline, and several of the space station components under construction, as well as astronaut training. China has stated that it will complete 11 intensive liftoffs within two years, using the Shenzhou and Tianzhou cargo spaceships to transport astronauts responsible for station assembly as well as Tianhe. The Long March 5-B launch vehicle is scheduled to carry the “Tianhe” core module to space in the first half of 2021 at the Wenchang Launch Center in Hainan, China, followed by the Long March 2-F launch vehicle in Gansu, China.
The Long March 5-B launch vehicle is scheduled to carry the Tianhe core module to the Wenchang Launch Center in Hainan, China, in the first half of 2021, followed by the Long March 2-F launch vehicle at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu with the Shenzhou manned spacecraft.
The Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSA) said in an Oct. 1 announcement that China has finalized 18 astronauts for the program, including seven pilots, seven aerospace engineers and four payload specialists, one of whom is a woman.
The China Aerospace Science and Technology Group has said in a statement that the Tiangong-1 space station will have a mission life of about 15 years, with three astronauts staying in orbit for the long term, rotating every six months, and six for a short-term stay of 10 days.
In June of this year, China announced that it would cooperate with 23 space agencies from 17 countries, including France, Germany, Japan, Kenya and Peru, to conduct scientific experiments on Tiangong-1.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has recently issued a warning that China’s space station program could threaten the U.S. space advantage. Director Jim Bridenstine has told Congress that after the decommissioning of the International Space Station (ISS), it is vital for the United States to remain in orbit around the Earth, and that the Sky One space station will threaten U.S. dominance in space.
Bridenstine said that the ISS has a limited lifetime and will eventually come to an end, and in order for the U.S. to secure a strategic advantage in space, NASA is requesting $150 million in fiscal year 2021 to help commercialize the near-Earth orbit.
He stressed that China’s commitment to building the Chinese space station and rapidly “selling” it to the world is threatening U.S. interests in space. It would be a tragedy if the United States, after all its efforts, were to abandon near-Earth orbit.
The International Space Station (ISS) was officially built in 1998 and is currently operated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), with the Russian Federal Space Agency (RKA), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and European Space Agency (ESA) as the main operators, after the United States rejected China’s participation in the ISS program in 1993.
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