Osburg says the space program could also attach a robotic telescope to it in the future, although the station itself is unlikely to grow much larger. Tiangong’s T-shape can limit expansion options, and so can other factors such as the need to manage electricity usage and eliminate waste heat. (The ISS, which has a truss structure and huge solar arrays, has gone through several expansions, although it also took years and years of launch to bring it all together.)
As with the ISS, the Chinese station will offer some opportunities for cooperation, through which other countries can send experiments, and perhaps later astronauts, to Tiangong. It had a Saudi Arabian experiment on board, and researchers from European institutions and other countries have proposed experiments on a variety of topics, from gamma-ray bursts to space medicine and space medicine. atomic clock. China’s trading partners can also participate by launching freighter missions. But unlike the ISS, which is constantly dependent on the cooperation and support of its partners, China has different priorities for Tiangong, said Marissa Herron, a space policy researcher at Rand and a fellow industry of Osburg, said. Their focus will likely be on demonstrating China’s leadership, and they need not depend on other countries’ space agencies and companies.
NASA will not be one of those partners. The agency is barred from collaborating by what is commonly known as the Wolf Amendment, which Congress passed in 2011. It prevents US agencies from working with Chinese companies and agencies due to its perceived national security concerns. It was a dramatic departure from the Cold War precedent, when NASA and their Soviet counterparts occasionally worked together despite political differences. To replace the ISS, NASA is investing in three possible plans for commercial space stations will launch in late 2020s at the earliest. (Temporarily, private company Axiomatic space is developing a module for the ISS.) NASA and its partners also plan to assemble lunar space station named Gateway the end of this decade as part of Artemis . Moon Program.
Russia is not expected to play a major role with Tiangong. The head of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, announced earlier this year that it would launch modules for its own new station as early as 2028 – although that can hardly happen.
The completion of Tiangong shows that China is no longer an emerging player in space – it is now one of the few great powers. And like other major powers, China is now faced with a problem: how to get rid of trash goes hand in hand with maintaining a space station. Most countries have reusable rockets or try dispose of their rockets by storing some fuel to allow controlled descent into the atmosphere. That ensures that they don’t stay in low Earth orbit, where they can be a hazard to satellites and space stations, as well as fall back to Earth out of control.
However, the two most recent Long March rocket stages that the Chinese space agency used to lift modules for the station crashed. While one fell into the Indian Ocean near the Maldives, the Wentian laboratory module rocket launched in July broke into pieces two weeks later, with some falling on Malaysia and Indonesia.
“With this booster [this week]The tank is based in Broomfield, Colorado, said Brian Weeden, director of program planning at the Secure World Foundation, a nonpartisan. Weeden says there is no international law that requires responsible behavior, even though China is a member of the United Nations Liability Convention, which means it is responsible if its missiles cause damage. cause damage or injury.
While China has space military capabilities, so are the US and RussiaThe space station doesn’t add to that, said David Burbach, an expert on national security issues at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Similar to the ISS and Mir, Tiangong has no military purpose and is primarily designed to support scientific research. “The station has a grappling arm and in theory it could take a US satellite. But if you want to do that, it’s much smarter to develop a small, stealthy satellite than to try to maneuver your massive space station,” said Burbach.
For Osburg, the completion of Tiangong has other geopolitical implications for the United States. “We can no longer take ourselves for granted as big dogs in space,” he said. “This is a reminder for us – to the US and its allies – not to give up. There are different ways to run a space station and explore space. I want it to be us who give voice to humanity’s expansion into space, not a dictatorship like China.”
