Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab

China continues to press forward on construction of its Tiangong space station, scheduled to be completed before year’s end.

Zhou Jianping, chief designer of the nation’s manned space program, said the assembly phase of the Tiangong program will begin in May and will involve the launch of two astronaut crews, two space labs and two cargo ships.

“The era of space station is still at the beginning. We are verifying key technology. Obviously, there will be a lot of work to do,” Zhou told China Central Television (CCTV).

China’s space station agenda also includes lofting an optical module that carries a space telescope, touted as having a better field angle than the NASA Hubble space telescope.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab

Steps ahead

“We will build our space station in 2022, which involves the launch, the in-orbit rendezvous as well as the transpositions at their berthing port of the two space stations’ experimental cabins,” Zhou added. “After the construction of the space station is complete, we also plan to launch the China Space Station Telescope into orbit in 2023 or 2024, providing us with a very powerful observation method in understanding the universe,” he said.

Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab

Three astronauts in the Shenzhou-14 and another trio in Shenzhou-15 are on tap this year. Zhou said that the Shenzhou-14 crew will be responsible for monitoring the docking between the Tianhe core module and the two space labs and then configuring the two labs.

The Shenzhou-15 crew will fly to the space station before the end of this year and join the Shenzhou-14 crew in space. At that time, the space station will consist of three modules, two manned spacecraft and one cargo spacecraft, with a total mass of nearly 100 tons, Zhou told the Xinhua news agency.

China launched the Shenzhou-13 on October 16, 2021, sending three astronauts, Zhai Zhigang, Ye Guangfu and Wang Yaping, on a six-month mission to take part in the construction of the country’s space station. They are residing in the 22.5-ton, three-section Tianhe core module.

Shenzhou-13 crew members.
Credit: CNS/Inside Outer Space screengrab

Grand blueprint

In other China space exploration news, Zhang Rongqiao, chief designer of the country’s first Mars exploration mission, said a “grand blueprint” for planetary exploration has been formulated.

“The next step is to collect and bring back samples from asteroids. We called it the asteroid exploration mission and it has entered the sample research and manufacture stage,” Zhang told CCTV.

Credit: CGTN/Inside Outer Space screengrab

“We will also carry out early researching and manufacturing of collecting and bringing back samples from Mars. The task is very difficult. So far, no country has returned from Mars after sampling, but we have confidence to implement this task well,” Zhang said.

Moon landing phase

In addition to this Mars mission, the chief designer of the third phase of the China Lunar Exploration Project, Hu Hao, has made meticulous preparations and laid solid foundations to carry out a lunar landing with his team, after the third phase mission of the Chang’e 5 probe successfully brought back samples from the moon in late 2020, reports CCTV.

Many designs in the project were aimed at paving ways for the crewed lunar landing in the future, for instance, the rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit, according to Hu.

Artist’s view of China/Russia International Lunar Research Station to be completed by 2035. Credit: CNSA/Roscosmos

China will be able to conduct a manned lunar landing by 2030 after 13 significant technology breakthroughs in rocket development are achieved, said Jiang Jie, member of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in an interview with China News Service. The development of China’s new-generation rocket able to launch humans is in a key technology tackling stage, said Jiang.

Zhou Jianping also voiced his confidence in China’s human spaceflight program, saying China will send its astronauts to Mars one day.

“When you see the Moon, you will be sure to dream about the Chinese myth, the goddess Chang’e Flying to the Moon. When you see the Red Planet Mars, you will also dream about how to send astronauts to Mars, which will be a great feat. I’m sure that Chinese astronauts will land on Mars,” Zhou said.