China launches first module of its space station

BEIJING.- Soon there could be a permanent Chinese presence in space. China today launched the first of three elements of its space station, an ambitious project that would allow Beijing to have astronauts permanently in space.

The assembly will be done along ten successive missions, four of them were occupied and it is expected to be completed by the end of 2022.

The central module, Tianhe (“Heavenly Harmony”), or will the astronauts live and it will be the station control center, was sent into space by a Long March 5B rocket from the Wenchang launch center on China’s southernmost tropical island, Hainan, according to a live broadcast on public television CCTV.

The space station, which was named after Tiangong or “Heavenly Palace” and in English “CSS” (for the Chinese Space Station), “it will be a big step forward for Chinese manned flight capabilities,” he said. Jonathan mcdowell, astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, United States.

It will operate between 340 and 450 kilometers altitude, in low earth orbit, and will be similar to the old Russian station “Mir”, which was in service from 1986 to 2001. The useful life of this new Chinese model is estimated. will be between 10 and 15 years old.

The Tianhe module has a length of 16.6 meters and a diameter of 4.2 meters. The completed space station is estimated to weigh over 100 tonnes. It will be three times smaller than the International space station (ISS), led by NASA.

Unlike the ISS, this station it is not intended to be a place of international cooperation. However, the Chinese regime has declared be open to collaborations with abroad. Chinese and UN scientists have selected experiments by foreign researchers, which will be carried out in the future CSS.

“It will serve as the basis for larger scale operations: manned missions to the Moon, space tourism, space science or even specific applications for humans,” he said. Chen Lan, analyst for the GoTaikonauts.com site, specializing in the Chinese space program.

“Politically, it symbolizes the increased competition between the United States and China,” Lan said of the fact that there will be one station of each power orbiting Earth.

“Russia Yes Pakistan will probably be the first partners and could be followed by the European Space Agency (ESA), “but this latest collaboration is” very uncertain “because” the political climate has changed a lot, “Chen Lan said, referring to escalating tensions around the China’s Xinjiang region, where the Muslim Uyghur minority lives, and Hong Kong.

Those who conduct the experiments at the station “will be more tourists than partners,” McDowell said.

China may allow other visitors to enter its space module, but surely they will not be Americans. Indeed, there is an American law in force for more than 5 years which prohibits NASA from having links with China.

Beijing hopes to be able to put one small wheeled robot on mars in May. In addition, the Chinese space agency has announced its intention to build a lunar base with Russia.

Agencia AFP

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