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China’s launch of an unmanned spacecraft aimed at bringing back the moon rocks underscores how far the country has come in fulfilling its “space dream”.
Beijing has invested billions of dollars in its military-run space program with the hopes of having a manned space station by 2022 and eventually sending humans to the moon.
Here’s a look at China’s space efforts over the decades:
Mao’s commitment
Immediately after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, Chairman Mao Zedong declared “we will also make satellites”.
It took more than 10 years, but in 1970, the first Chinese satellite lifted into space aboard a Long March rocket.
Human spaceflight lasted decades longer, with Yang Liwei becoming the first Chinese astronaut to go to space in 2003.
As the launch approached, concerns about the mission’s viability prompted Beijing to cancel a nationwide live television broadcast at the last minute.
Despite fears, the launch went smoothly, with Yang orbiting Earth 14 times during his 21-hour flight aboard the Shenzhou 5.
Since then, China has sent men and women into space with increasing regularity.
Flames and exhaust trail behind a long March-5 rocket carrying the Chang’e 5 moon mission after takeoff [Mark Schiefelbein/AP]Space Station
Following in the footsteps of the United States and Russia, China is trying to open a space station that surrounds our planet.
Tiangong-1 was launched into orbit in September 2011.
In 2016, China launched its second station, the Tiangong-2 laboratory, orbiting 393 km (244 miles) above the Earth, in what analysts say will likely serve as the final element before China launches a space station. with crew.
The astronauts who visited the station conducted experiments on the cultivation of rice and other plants, as well as on the docking of spaceships.
‘Space dream’
Under President Xi Jinping, plans for China’s “space dream”, as he calls it, have been pushed to the limit.
The new superpower is trying to finally catch up with the United States and Russia after years of belated correspondence with their space milestones.
The ambitions begin with a space station of its own – China has been deliberately excluded from the International Space Station effort – with the assembly of pieces in space expected to begin this year and manned use to begin in 2022.
China is also planning to build a base on the moon with the country aiming to establish a moon mission by 2029.
But lunar work suffered a setback in 2017 when the Long March-5 Y2, a powerful heavy-duty rocket, failed to launch on a mission to send communication satellites into orbit.
The failure forced the postponement of the launch of Chang’e-5, originally planned to collect lunar samples in the second half of 2017.
Another robot, the Chang’e-4, landed on the opposite side of the moon in January 2019, a historic first.
Chinese astronauts and scientists have also talked about manned missions to Mars as Beijing strives to become a global space power.
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