It has nearly been a century since the US, Russia and the European Space Agency have been in the space race, and another supergiant – China – was a latecomer.
China became the fifth nation to place a satellite into the Earth’s orbit on April 24, 1970, and after a long pause, it formed the China National Space Administration in 1993. Ten years later, China became the third nation to send a human to space.
In the early ‘90s, China speeded up its space expedition by starting to build the world’s largest ground telescope. It later started building its own space station after being barred from participating in the US-led International Space Station (ISS) program. Russia has recently announced to end its cooperation and is likely to build its second space station.
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Sent to space in 1998, the ISS is set to expire in 2024 but may be tasked to orbit the Moon till 2030, when the US plans to replace it with a new station.
In recent years, China has achieved several milestones: its giant ground telescope “Sky Eye” has detected radio signals several times from 2020 till June latest, and launched the Chinese GPS “Beidou” in June 2020 and space station “Tiangong” or “Heavenly Palace” on April 21, 2021. China is also set to launch a powerful space telescope named “Xuntian” late next year.
It has also sent rovers to Moon and Mars, and became the first nation to reach the far side of the Moon.
An image of Mars taken by China's Tianwen-1 unmanned probe is seen in this handout image released on June 29, 2022 ReutersMeanwhile, both Russia and China are considering manned missions to the Moon and Mars to establish base stations. The US has also declared its second manned Moon mission – the first time since 1969 and this time for a long stay – before sending humans to Mars.
In response to China’s recent steps that have put it in a dominant position in the space race, the US launched a massive media campaign in July to draw the world’s attention to its new James Webb Space Telescope – a $10-billion-project initiated in 2004 and launched in December last year to replace the age-old Hubble Space Telescope. The Webb has sent back some photos of the far galaxies, giving scientists a great opportunity to uncover the mystery of the Universe.
Japan, South Korea, Russia and India, the UAE are working on their lunar missions. India has launched its second major Moon mission and plans to build a space station by 2030.
China’s milestones
April 24, 1970: China sends its first satellite Dong Fang Hong 1 to space and becomes fifth nation to place a satellite into Earth orbit.
April 22, 1993: The Chinese National Space Administration is set up.
1999: Shenzhou program is launched.
October 16, 2003: China launches first manned spacecraft Shenzhou 5 – the third country after Soviet Union and the US; astronaut Yang Liwei spends 21 hours in space and orbits Earth 14 times.
2005: China launches its first two-person mission.
This screen grab made from video released by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV shows the capsule of the Shenzhou-13 spacecraft after it returned to earth carrying three Chinese astronauts in China's Inner Mongolia on April 16, 2022 CCTV / AFPSeptember 29, 2011: Tiangong-1, a single-module space station, is launched on a Long March 2F rocket.
June 2012: A three-person crew, including the first Chinese woman, aboard Shenzhou 9 docked with the space station.
September 15, 2016: A second space station, Tiangong-2, is launched.
2018: First launch by a private firm LandSpace, founded in 2015.
December 8, 2018: China sends Chang’e-4 probe to Moon.
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January 3, 2019: China becomes first country to send a robotic rover to the far side of the Moon.
June 23, 2020: China sends the world's first 6G test satellite into orbit – the third iteration of the Beidou Navigation Satellite System that promises to provide global coverage for timing and navigation, offering an alternative to Russia's Glonass and the European Galileo systems, as well as America's GPS.
December 3, 2020: China releases an image showing its national flag unfurled from the Chang'e-5 probe on the Moon before the takeoff.
January 11, 2021: Giant telescope Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) or Sky Eye starts operation. Set up in Guizhou, it is the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope with a receiving area equivalent to 30 football fields.
April 2021: First module of Tiangong space station launched into space.
An image of Mars taken by China's Tianwen-1 unmanned probe is seen in this handout image released on June 29, 2022 ReutersMay 15, 2021: Six-wheeled Zhurong robot touches the surface of Mars at Utopia Planitia, where Nasa landed its Viking-2 mission in 1976.
September 21, 2021: Three Chinese astronauts return to Earth after the longest space mission of six months.
March 27, 2022: China determines more than 40 chemical elements in the lunar soil samples brought back by the Chang'e-5 mission. The chemical substances are very different from those on Earth.
May 2022: Scientists discover an active repeating fast radio burst called FRB20190520B in a metal-poor dwarf galaxy nearly three billion light-years from Earth using FAST, the second example of a highly active FRB with repeating bursts and persistent radio emission between bursts after 2016.
File Photo: A youth jumps in a lunar simulator beside the replica of a Chinese probe while visiting the recently-opened Shanghai Planetarium in Shanghai on July 30, 2021 AFPJuly 24, 2022: Second module for Tiangong, named Wentian or "Quest for the Heavens", is launched. The third module, Mengtian, is set to be sent by the end of the year.
July 2022: Scientists detect over 660 new pulsars, which are fast-spinning neutron stars originating through supernova explosions, using FAST.
File Photo: A screen broadcasts a CCTV state media news bulletin, showing an image of Mars taken by Chinese Mars rover Zhurong as part of the Tianwen-1 mission, in Beijing on May 19, 2021 ReutersAugust 5, 2022: China hits record by flying an uncrewed spaceplane, a “reusable test space vehicle”, but refrains from releasing any photos to date when it is still in orbit. According to tracking by the US Space Force’s 18th Space Defense Squadron (18 SDS), seven objects are in orbit along with the spaceplane; one or both of a pair could be inspector satellites.