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Victoria Bela

China has unveiled an ambitious road map to surpass the United States and become the world leader in space science by 2050.
The national development programme for space science was released on Tuesday by the China National Space Administration, China Manned Space Agency and Chinese Academy of Sciences.
It is the first such plan unveiled in China and sets out 17 priority areas for development.
They include searching for habitable planets and extraterrestrial life, exploring the origin and evolution of the universe, uncovering the nature of gravity, and exploring quantum mechanics and general relativity.
Scientific mission plans are to be rolled out in three stages – from now until 2027, from 2028 to 2035, and from 2036 to 2050.


Five to eight future missions are to be added to the current projects in the years to 2027, in accordance with China’s long-term space science goals.
In the second stage, the aim is to develop and deploy 15 missions to build up space power, including the launch of a permanent lunar research station.
And in the third stage, China aims to launch 30 space science missions to surpass other powers to become the leading nation in space science and exploration.
“We will strive to achieve the ‘three-step’ strategic goal formulated in the plan – that is, China’s space science will enter the first echelon in 2027, be among the world’s leading countries in key directions in 2035, and become a world space science power in important fields by 2050,” Wang Chi, director of the CAS National Space Science Centre, told reporters in Beijing.
The US has long held a leading position in space, ranking top in the world in terms of missions launched. Both its federally funded space agency and private companies like SpaceX are making major strides, including testing reusable rockets.
In 2021, Nasa launched the James Webb Space Telescope – the largest and most complex telescope ever launched into space. The US has also launched multiple successful Mars rovers, and aims to send astronauts to the red planet as early as the 2030s.
Despite beginning its space programme decades after the US and other powers, China has been steadily notching up milestones, including launching its own space station and becoming the first country to return samples from the far side of the moon.
Those samples – returned during the Chang’e-6 mission in June – have been found to have distinct characteristics, and studying them further could reveal new information about the moon.


“Our country’s space technology has made major breakthroughs, and some areas are at the forefront of the world,” Ding Chibiao, vice-president of the CAS, said at the same press briefing.
“Space applications represented by communications, navigation and remote sensing satellites are booming, playing an important role in serving the national economy and social development.”
“However, in comparison, the number of our space science satellites is still relatively small, and the major landmark achievements produced are not enough, and there is still a certain gap compared with the world’s aerospace powers,” he said.
“China’s space science research as a whole is still in its infancy, which is a shortcoming that must be addressed on the road to building a space power.”
During the briefing, Yang Xiaoyu, director of the CNSA System Engineering Department, dismissed warnings from a US official about the data security risk posed by working with China on space projects.
He said China “has never and will not” share data from international cooperation projects without permission.
The plan identifies five scientific themes to guide the development of space science missions: habitable planets, biological and physical sciences in space, the sun-Earth panorama, space-time ripples, and the extreme universe.
It calls for scientists to search for habitable planets and life both within and outside the solar system, which will include characterising atmospheres, detecting exoplanets, studying impact history, and further exploring Mars and Jupiter.
To further study space and its phenomena, the plan calls for a deeper understanding of physics, including general relativity – which was Albert Einstein’s understanding of how gravity affected the space-time fabric – as well as space life science and microgravity.
It also calls for further study of the relationship between the sun and Earth, including magnetic activity, as well as the nature of gravity and space-time, including the formation of supermassive black holes.
The plan also calls for further research into the origin and evolution of the universe, including the origin of stars and the nature of dark matter.
China has a number of space missions planned, including the Chang’e-7 and 8 robotic lunar missions, the Tianwen-2 near-Earth asteroid mission, and the Tianwen-3 mission that aims to return samples from Mars before the US.
China is also partnering with nations around the world to launch a permanent lunar research station.
Yang said China would continue to work with other nations as it pursues its space goals, including developing countries to allow them “fair access to and use of outer space”.


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China

Plan sets out 17 priority areas for development including searching for habitable planets and exploring quantum mechanics


Plan sets out 17 priority areas for development including searching for habitable planets and exploring quantum mechanics.
