China’s 5-yr space plan broadens challenge to retreating US

Coupled with China’s earlier vows to build a space station and put an astronaut on the moon,the plan conjured up memories of the cold-war-era space race between the US and the Soviet Union. The US,which has de-emphasized manned spaceflight in recent years,is now dependent on Russia for transporting its astronauts to the International Space Station. Russia,for its part,has suffered an embarrassing string of failed satellite launchings.

The plan announced Thursday calls for launching a space lab and collecting samples from the moon,all by 2016,along with a more powerful manned spaceship and space freighters. It envisages a vastly expanded version of China’s Global Positioning System,which would have military as well as civilian uses.

The plan shows how the government intends to draw on military and civilian resources to meet the goals,which the government is betting will also produce benefits for the Chinese economy. “This approach offers lessons for other advanced space powers,including the US,which needs to make sure it sustains its high-level investment in various aspects of space development across the board,” said Andrew S Erickson of the United States Naval War College.

While a leader in the business of launching satellites,China is still years behind the US in space. Its human spaceflight accomplishments to date put it roughly where the US and USSR were in the mid-1960s.

But China has consistently stuck to a development timeline for its programme and met the realistic goals set out in its five-year plans,which are mainstays of the Communist Party’s authoritarian system. “They don’t have fits and starts,” said Joseph R Fragola,a space safety expert who has visited the space facilities in China. “Their programme is low budget but it is laid out,and they follow it in an orderly process.”

Unlike in the US,where military and civilian space programmes are separate,in China the People’s Liberation Army is the driving force behind the space programme. Civilian institutions are part of the military-led efforts. In the white paper that laid out the plan,released by the State Council,China’s cabinet,the authors stressed that “China always adheres to the use of outer space for peaceful purposes,and opposes weaponisation or any arms race in outer space.”

Analysts say one of the more notable goals of the five-year strategy is to further develop the Beidou Navigation Satellite System,which on Tuesday began providing navigation,positioning and timing data on China and surrounding areas.

The white paper said China intended to have a global system by 2020,with 35 satellites in orbit. If it met that goal,China would join Russia in having a system that tries to rival America’s. China has already launched 10 satellites for the Beidou system,and plans to launch six more next year.