China releases five-year plan to become a space power. What are the space dreams of China, the United States and Europe?

On January 28, 2022, the State Council Information Office released the white paper "China's Space in 2021", which pointed out that since 2016, China's space industry has entered the "fast lane" of innovative development. In the next five years, China's space industry will be based on the new development stage and embark on a new journey of comprehensively building a space power.

Similarly, the pace of space exploration is accelerating around the world. Many people believe that 2022 will be a special year for space exploration. The completion of the Chinese space station assembly will usher in an era of permanent astronauts in space; the United States will start a plan to return to the moon; Europe and Russia will try to send spacecraft to Mars (their previous attempts have all failed), and there will also be asteroid defense, private space travel, and many other tasks launched, which are worth looking forward to!

Written by | BiPuXianren

On January 28, 2022, the State Council Information Office released the white paper "China's Space in 2021", which introduced the main progress of China's space industry in the past five years and the main tasks in the next five years. In the next five years, China's space industry will promote the comprehensive development of space science, space technology, and space applications, and embark on a new journey of building a space power in an all-round way.

The most strategically significant and exciting journey in the aerospace industry is undoubtedly space exploration. This field of work consists of three core sectors: space transportation systems, manned space flight, and deep space exploration.

In terms of space transportation systems, China will accelerate the upgrading of launch vehicles in the future: develop and launch a new generation of manned launch vehicles and large-thrust solid launch vehicles, promote the development of heavy-lift launch vehicle projects, and continue to tackle key technologies and demonstrate and verify reusable space transportation systems, etc.

In 2021, China achieved milestones in manned space flight: the core module of the Tiangong space station, Tianhe, was successfully launched, the Tianzhou cargo spacecraft and the Shenzhou manned spacecraft were successfully launched and docked with Tianhe, and six astronauts entered the Chinese space station and carried out various tasks. It is worth mentioning that the Shenzhou 13 astronauts spent their first Spring Festival in the space station.

In the next five years, we expect to be able to fully complete the Tiangong space station, build a national space laboratory, carry out long-term astronaut stays, large-scale space science experiments, etc. Manned lunar landing plans and technical research are in progress, and a new generation of manned spacecraft will also be developed.

In terms of deep space exploration, China will send more Chang'e series probes to carry out more difficult sampling and exploration work in the future, and will continue to carry out Mars sampling with the help of the Zhurong rover that successfully landed on Mars last year; in addition, the launch of asteroid probes, sampling of near-Earth asteroids and exploration of main-belt comets are all in our near-term plans.

Of course, China is not the only country that yearns for the bright stars. Many space agencies around the world have plans to embark on a space journey in the near future - especially in this busy 2022, when many heavy-duty missions are about to be launched, which are worth looking forward to: colonizing the moon, searching for life on Mars, anti-asteroid defense, private space travel...

The most powerful rocket takes off, Orion colonizes the moon People are paying special attention to NASA's Space Launch System (SLS). As part of NASA's Artemis Program, the SLS rocket is the most powerful rocket they have designed so far, with a height of more than 100 meters and a load of 95 tons (first stage). It is the basis for sending astronauts to the moon and beyond.

The first launch of the SLS rocket is scheduled for February this year, carrying the unmanned Orion spacecraft, which will fly 450,000 kilometers into lunar orbit. Orion will fly at an altitude of about 100 kilometers above the lunar surface (closest), and then use the moon's gravity to propel it to 70,000 kilometers - this altitude means it is the farthest manned spacecraft from Earth.

Orion is expected to carry 4-6 astronauts and will be equipped with a European service module to provide power for its "flirtatious movement" in orbit. As the manufacturer of the service module, the European Space Agency is also expected to become an important partner in the Artemis mission.

If the February mission is successful, Orion will carry out a manned lunar orbit in 2024 and a lunar landing in 2025 - 53 years after the last successful manned lunar landing. In December 1972, the Apollo 17 lunar module was launched by a Saturn V rocket and then landed in Taurus-Littrow Canyon. The two astronauts conducted three lunar activities.

A model of NASA's Orion spacecraft

The Orion mission will mark the beginning of a lunar colonization program. Astronauts will spend months here developing technologies that can be used in future colonies on Mars. Their first major target will be Shackleton crater near the moon's south pole, where large amounts of ice are believed to be present. The water will not only provide valuable food for the astronauts, but can also be converted into hydrogen and oxygen through electrolysis for use as rocket fuel.

Peregrine falcon flies over Lake of the Dead

Landers built by private companies with NASA support will carry science and technology missions to the lunar surface.

NASA's $2.6 billion Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program is about to launch a large-scale robotic mission, with a fleet of robotic probes heading to the moon, with the first missions starting in 2022. Developed by private companies with NASA support, these probes will attempt to map groundwater deposits, study the deep interior of the moon, send robotic rovers to survey the lunar surface, and more.

The Peregrine lander designed by Astrobotic will head to the Moon's Lacus Mortis, a basalt plain on the northeastern surface. The Peregrine will carry a variety of instruments to conduct a full-scale exploration of the lunar environment.

Another American company, Intuitive Machines, is following suit and will send a spacecraft carrying six payloads to Oceanus Procellarum.

A dozen more CLPS missions are expected to launch over the next three years — though NASA’s science chief, Thomas Zurbuchen, has warned that these privately funded efforts face a high risk of failure: “As many as half could go wrong.”

It is worth mentioning that both Russia and India plan to launch their own lunar landers this year, while South Korea is preparing to place a satellite in lunar orbit to explore its mineral composition.

Drilling for life on Mars

Working prototype of the ExoMars rover

This year, the joint European-Russian ExoMars mission is set to launch. The mission's robotic rovers - the European Space Agency's Rosalind Franklin rover and Russia's Kazachok lander - are scheduled to land on Oxia Planum, a clay plain in Mars' northern hemisphere. Rosalind Franklin is scheduled to launch in September and land in June 2023; it will be equipped with a drill that can probe 2 meters below the Martian surface, aiming to search for markers that could indicate the presence of life.

Since the 19 previous Russian/Soviet and two European attempts to land on Mars all ended in failure, people are not too optimistic about the ExoMars mission. In 2016, the European and Russian Mars lander Schiaparelli lander was originally intended as a test run for the ExoMars mission, but eventually crashed due to a malfunction.

On the other hand, NASA's Perseverance rover, which landed in the Jezero Crater on Mars in February last year, recently completed its own maintenance and testing and sent back data about Martian rocks. Next, it will continue to conduct long-term geological exploration outside the Jezero Crater, looking for signs of ancient life in this land that was once a delta, such as traces of organic matter or microorganisms. The Ingenuity helicopter that followed Perseverance to Mars recently began its 19th Mars flight, which is also the first in 2022.

China's Zhurong Mars rover successfully landed on Mars in May last year, and has traveled more than 1,400 meters by the end of 2021. This year, Zhurong will continue to efficiently carry out patrol and exploration missions on the surface of Mars and collect more scientific data. It is worth mentioning that the northern hemisphere of Mars will enter a six-month winter from late July this year, and Zhurong is fully prepared. In terms of keeping warm, Zhurong has a heat-collecting window on the top of the body, which is filled with phase change materials - it collects heat in the sun during the day and solidifies and releases heat at low temperatures at night.

Destroy asteroids, save the world

The most spectacular asteroid mission of 2022 will be a test of NASA's asteroid defense system. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft, launched last year, will collide with the asteroid Dimorphos in September. Dimorphos, the size of a football field, orbits its parent body Didymos. Weighing more than 600 kilograms, DART will dash toward its target at 2,400 kilometers per hour to try to change Dimorphos' orbit.

Astronomers say that if the DART mission is successful, it will encourage NASA and other space agencies to develop larger spacecraft to defend against asteroids hitting the Earth. If an asteroid the size of Dimorphos hits the Earth, the consequences would be equivalent to an explosion of 400-600 million tons of TNT. Elena Adams, a system engineer at DART, said: "The impact of Dimorphos can completely destroy a city like Manhattan. The DART mission is designed to demonstrate a technology that can save the world."

NASA's other asteroid missions include the launch of the Psyche Mission in August this year to visit a metallic asteroid called 16 Psyche, which contains a large amount of nickel, iron and rare metals. It is believed to be the remnant of a planet after a violent collision with other celestial bodies and is the core of the original planet. The study of Psyche will provide scientists with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to explore the core of a planet and a metallic world.

Astronauts Zhai Zhigang and Wang Yaping conduct extravehicular activities outside the Tianhe core module of the space station.

Visitors from Space In April 2021, the Tianhe core module, the first of the three main modules of the Tiangong space station, was launched on the Long March 5B carrier rocket. China's space construction has since entered a new era. Afterwards, the Tianzhou-2 cargo spacecraft and the Shenzhou-12 manned spacecraft visited Tianhe and completed docking; the three astronauts in the Shenzhou successfully entered the space station and will stay for a long time.

In 2022, we will see the launch of the Wentian and Mengtian labs, which will then dock with Tianhe. Later, the space telescope will be launched at an appropriate time to fly independently in the same orbit as the space station for a long time, conduct sky surveys, and dock at the space station for short periods of time for supplies, maintenance and upgrades.

On the other hand, Axiom Space, based in Houston, USA, is preparing to launch its first purely private space mission to the International Space Station at the end of February this year. SpaceX will provide the Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket for this mission. The four astronauts on the spacecraft are expected to stay in the space station for eight days.

Sky travel in progress

Richard Branson flew to the edge of space last July while observing Earth from Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity passenger spacecraft.

Boeing hopes to launch its Starliner into orbit in May this year, and then begin transporting astronauts to and from the International Space Station. In fact, Boeing's Starliner is already several years behind schedule: a test docking in 2019 failed; last year's attempt was also canceled at the last minute because the fuel valve failed to open. In contrast, SpaceX, which has the same dream, has come from behind: in September 2021, they used the Falcon 9 rocket to launch the Crew Dragon, carrying four ordinary people on a three-day trip around the earth, completing the first purely commercial manned space flight mission.

Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos, and Virgin Galactic, founded by Richard Branson, both successfully completed their first manned suborbital flights last year, and in 2022, their space "travel fleets" are expected to begin regular missions, with passengers experiencing a few minutes of weightlessness before returning to Earth.

On January 28, the China National Space Administration released a white paper titled "China's Space in 2021," which mentioned the cultivation and expansion of space application industries in the next five years, including "cultivating and developing space tourism."

Space travel is indeed no longer a fantasy.

References

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jan/02/to-the-moon-and-beyond-what-2022-holds-for-space-travel

[2] https://purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2022/Q1/perseverances-first-year-on-mars-purdue-professor,-mission-team-member-looks-at-what-is-ahead.html

[3] https://www.cast.cn/news/7123

[4] https://www.space.com/space-missions-to-watch-this-year

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