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Beijing (AFP)
The launch of the Chang’e 5 probe to the moon on Tuesday, tasked with collecting samples of lunar rocks, is another step in the space conquest of China, initiated 60 years ago by Mao and now aimed at Mars.
China invests billions of dollars in its space program, trying to catch up with Europe, the United States and Russia.
Among his most ambitious projects is to place a remote-controlled robot on Mars next year, build a large space station by 2022 or send Chinese people to the moon by 2030.
These are the main stages of the Chinese space conquest:
– Mao’s Call –
In 1957, the Soviet Union put the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, into Earth orbit. The founder of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong, then appealed to its citizens: “We will also make satellites!”
The first stop occurred in 1970. China launched its first satellite with the help of the “Long March” rocket, a name that recalls the journey of the Red Army that allowed Mao to establish himself as leader of the Chinese Communist Party.
But it will take until 2003 for the Asian giant to send the first Chinese into space, astronaut Yang Liwei, who circles the Earth 14 times in 21 hours.
With this flight, China became the third country, after the Soviet Union and the United States, to send a human being into space by its own means. Since then he has regularly carried out manned space missions.
– Modules and rabbit –
China had already deliberately ruled out participation in the International Space Station (ISS), which associates Americans, Russians, Europeans, Japanese and Canadians. Your intention is to build yours.
To achieve this, it first launched a small space module, Tiangong-1 (“Celestial Palace 1”), which was put into orbit in September 2011. It was used for astronaut training and medical experiments.
In 2013, the second Chinese astronaut in space, Wang Yaping, gave a live-streamed physics class to hundreds of millions of students and viewers on Earth.
Tiangong-1 went out of business in March 2016. The laboratory was considered a preliminary stage in the construction of a space station.
Another important milestone occurred in 2013: the landing of the small remote-controlled robot “Jade Rabbit”, in charge, for example, of taking photographs.
It initially had technical problems, but was eventually reactivated and explored the lunar surface for 31 months, much longer than its expected duration.
In 2016, China launched its second Tiangong-2 space module. The astronauts performed, among other maneuvers, technical couplings.
– The “space dream” –
Under the slogan of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “dream of space”, the country is now aiming for even greater goals.
Assembly of its space station will begin this year and is expected to finish in 2022. China would become the third country to build one on its own (after the United States and the USSR).
The Asian giant also plans to build a base on the moon. The head of the Chinese space agency (CNSA) said the intention is to send a manned mission to Earth’s only natural satellite by 2029.
China’s space program failed in the summer of 2017 with the failed launch of the Long March 5, crucial because it allows it to push the heavy load needed for some missions.
This setback led to the three-year postponement of the Chang’e 5 mission, which was finally launched on Tuesday.
China dealt a major blow in January 2019 with a world first: the landing of a remote-controlled robot (the “Jade Rabbit 2”) on the far side of the moon.
The country launched the latest satellite to complement its Beidou navigation system (competitor to the American GPS) in June 2020. The following month, he sent a probe to Mars. In May of next year I should land a vehicle on Martian soil.
Astronauts and scientists also talked about the possible sending of Chinese to the red planet in the more distant future.
© 2020 AFP
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