As tall as a 20-story building, a Shenzhou 15 mission rocket soared into the night sky of the Gobi Desert on Tuesday, carrying three astronauts to a rendezvous with China. space station just completed.
The rocket launch was a split-screen event for China, the latest in a long string of its technological achievements, even as many of its citizens have angry lashing on the street against the strict control of the pandemic.
The air trembled as the giant white rocket plunged into the cold, starry night sky just before the full crescent moon set. The expedition to the new space station is an important milestone for China’s rapidly growing space program. This is the first time that a group of three astronauts already on the Tiangong outpost will meet a crew from Earth. China’s space station will now be continuously occupied, just like the International Space Station, another marker set by China in its race to catch up with the United States and overtake it as a superpower. domination in space.
With a sustained presence in low Earth orbit aboard Tiangong, Chinese space officials are preparing to send astronauts to the moon, NASA also intends to visit again before the end of the decade as part of the mission. of the Artemis program.
“It won’t take long; we can achieve the goal of manned moon landing,” Zhou Jianping, chief designer of China’s manned space program, said in an interview at the launch center. He added that China is developing a lunar lander without saying when it could be used.
The launch of Shenzhou 15 comes less than two weeks after the last NASA Launch of the Artemis I . mission after many delays. That flight took it Orion capsule disassembled into orbit around the moon.
At the same time, Beijing has engage in a charm attack since the Group of 20 Summit in Bali earlier this month, attracting European nations and especially developing countries. That includes space exploration. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, emphasized that point in a November 21 letter to a United Nations symposium.
“China is willing to work with other countries to strengthen exchanges and cooperation, jointly explore the mysteries of space, use space peacefully, and promote space technology for the benefit.” better benefit the people of all countries in the world,” Xi wrote.
While European countries are collaborating with the United States on the Artemis and International Space Station missions, so far they have not expressed much interest in Tiangong. Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action said in a written response to questions that Germany has no bilateral projects with China on its space station.
And while Germany and Italy each sent an astronaut to China’s Shandong province four years ago for flight training on a Shenzhou rocket, neither country has announced plans to send astronauts on board the rocket. . However, a number of European researchers involved in scientific experiments will be brought to Tiangong, including the proposed high-energy cosmic radiation detector. Researchers from India, Peru, Mexico and Saudi Arabia also received the opportunity to study the Chinese space station through a United Nations program.
Officials in Europe have been wary of closer cooperation in space at a time of increasing friction over China’s human rights record and military build-up. They have asked China to share very detailed information about its space activities, in part to ensure the safety of its astronauts. However, China, which has a space program tied to its military, has been cautious in doing so.
That military connection was on display at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the desert. Camouflaged vehicles can be seen in and around the base, and some signs do not mention Shenzhou civilian space rockets but Dongfeng, the ballistic missile used in the nuclear arsenal. people of China.
Visitors who approached the launch center received a series of short automated warning messages on their cell phones, starting about 50 miles away. The warnings said they had entered the military-administered area, where photography is strictly prohibited and national security violators will be executed.
The first message in Chinese provides a mobile phone number to report any sightings of foreigners or suspicious activity, and ends with a warning: “Those secret stealers must be will surely be caught and will be beheaded once caught! Everyone catches enemy spies, and makes great contributions by capturing them!”
Ji Qiming, assistant general manager of the China Manned Space Engineering Bureau, said at a news conference on Monday ahead of the Shenzhou 15 launch that China is preserving the legacy of its “two single-satellite bomb” pointed out by Mao. That program aimed to create an atomic bomb, an intercontinental ballistic missile to carry the bomb, and a satellite to observe the world below.
On Tuesday, foreign journalists were allowed access to the launch center, which began construction in 1958 and is often off-limits even to Chinese nationals.
Two journalists from The New York Times and a photographer from Japan’s Kyodo News were allowed to attend the launch, as well as a small group of journalists from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau. Visitors from Beijing and other cities are required to spend the first week in quarantine at a village hotel about 50 miles away and pass daily PCR tests. Foreign journalists paid for their travel, accommodation and quarantine.
The quarantine is part of a complex set of precautions aimed at preventing the Covid-19 virus from returning to the center of space. An outbreak last year interrupted work at the site for a short time.
The base is 150 miles from the nearest city, Jiayuguan in northern Gansu province, in the Gobi desert. On the highway from the city, an ancient China was still evident as a farmer’s herd of Bactrian camels walked along, their two humps shaggy with dark brown fur as winter approached.
The area around the launch center has some of the tallest permanent sand dunes in the world, rising to over 1,000 feet. Flat, gray gravel surrounds the base itself, which houses an architectural block.
A huge vertical assembly building for rockets and modern administrative high-rises stands at the front of the base. Behind them were older, low-rise brick buildings with prominent Communist Party insignia, and then rows of three-story apartment buildings with peeling white paint. The astronaut training and living quarters used prior to launch have been built in a fanciful Art Deco style with an uncanny resemblance to Tomorrowland at Disneyland.
Newer buildings at the site show how quickly China has caught up with the West in space. Charles Bolden, who led NASA under the Obama administration, says China’s ample budget and long-term planning have given it an advantage over the United States, where Congress is divided over space costs. .
China moves as fast as “anyone would if they had unlimited resources and didn’t have to go back” repeatedly to politicians to approve spending, he said.
The crewed space agency’s Mr. Zhou says that China has effectively spent money on its space program, and that its space station has cost no more than $8 billion. Wages and living costs are low for the large community of rocket scientists who live and work mostly in isolation at the Jiuquan launch center, even their internet communications with the rest of China restricted for national security reasons.
In contrast, NASA will spend $3 billion this year alone on the International Space Station, which has already cost more than $100 billion to build and maintain over its lifetime.
Three men were on board Shenzhou 15 as it took off: Fei Junlong, Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu. China has sent women into orbit on previous trips, but has chosen its oldest and most experienced crew of astronauts to put the newly completed space station into operation in the next six months.
The trio drew attention when they were introduced at a press conference and gave clear military salutes. Mr. Fei, the spaceflight commander, first went to space in 2005 and was 57 years old.
He said: “I am very proud and excited to be able to go into space again for my country.
Huang Weifen, the chief designer of the astronaut systems, said in an interview that China has added resistance exercise equipment and a richer menu to its recent space flights, even include fresh fruits and vegetables.
She adds that herbal treatments based on traditional Chinese medicine are carried to the space station and are also used to give astronauts medicinal baths after they return to Earth, in order to reduce the risk of illness. reduce the health effects of prolonged stay in space.
Mr. Zhou Jianping said that the experiments carried out by the crew would involve using extremely accurate atomic clocks to study gravity and deploying space telescopes to study ultraviolet rays. remote regions of the universe.
“China’s aerospace industry is developing rapidly,” he said. “China is already an aerospace power.”
Li You Research contributions from Jiuquan.
