China’s Future Plans to Get to the Moon, Mars & Beyond

China’s Future Plans to Get to the Moon, Mars & Beyond.

#space #china

Over the past decade, China's space program has been quietly working to become the world's most powerful space nation.

While we've known that China has pursued space exploration for a while, it's become more of a priority than ever. The country's space program, directed by the China National Space Administration or CNSA, has existed since the 1950s. That's an incredibly long history for something that much of the world isn't even too familiar with.

And that's been China's point. Previously, the country has held back on promises and released information, although they've ironically become more open than ever. As the country's become more public, we've seen peaks into the China-based CNSA alongside the China Manned Space Agency.

However, things have sped up quickly, with China pushing mission after mission into space. Whether it may be with the country's Tiangong space station, an ISS rival, their far-side-of-the-moon probe, or the recent trips into outer space, China's goals keep pushing them closer to their final plans — to make it to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

As briefly mentioned a few sentences ago, in 2019, China's Chang’e 4 robot had the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the Moon. June 2020 brought the final satellite of Beidou, the country's national GPS alternative. And in December 2020, China recovered Moon rock samples with Chang’e 5— their first-ever lunar recovery.

In April, China launched the Tianhe core module, the basis for the eventual Tiangong space station. June had China's first astronaut-led space launch in five years, and it seems like the sudden burst of events isn't slowing down.

That same month, the country announced its space plans up to 2025. And these plans are ambitious.
During the CNSA's conference, prominent notes included Moon-based, interplanetary, and asteroid landings, the construction of the Tiangong space station, a state-run national satellite internet system, and oddly enough, heavy-launch rockets and reusable space vehicles. Hmm, wonder what the last point might be in response to?

Anyway, this is big. China is planning to catch up to everything the combined US government and the country's private aerospace companies have accomplished within just a few years. Plus, it seems China's ready to do whatever it takes — with a boost in funding from 2 billion dollars to over 11 billion in what's rumored to have been just between a year, the country's looks ready to pull out all the stops.
However, China isn't waiting until 2025 to start getting things done. They're already there.

June 2020, China launched Tianwen-1, the country's first Mars rover. Equipped with an orbiter, lander, and rover, the mission ended with a successful landing on May 14th, 2021.

With governmental agencies such as NASA and private companies like SpaceX making headwinds in the space industry, many people believe we are now entering the 21st century's version of the Space Race. Only this time the landscape looks a lot more different than the 1960s and 70s.

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