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China Drafts Space Development Strategy for 21st Century
China is drafting a space development strategy and plans oriented to the 21st century according to the actual demands and long-term target of national development to spur the growth of the space industry.
This is disclosed in a white paper, entitled "China's Space Activities", published by the Information Office of the State Council Wednesday.
The white paper lists China's short-term development targets for the space industry in the next decade as follows:
- To build up an earth observation system for long-term stable operation. The meteorological satellites, resource satellites, oceanic satellites and disaster monitoring satellites can develop into an earth observation system for long-term stable operation to conduct stereoscopic observation and dynamic monitoring of the land, atmosphere, and oceanic environments of the country, the peripheral regions and even the whole globe;
- To set up an independently operated satellite broadcasting and telecommunications system. Positive support will be given to the development of commercial broadcasting and telecommunications satellites such as geo-stationary telecom satellites and TV live broadcasting satellites with long operating life, high reliability and large capacity, so as to form China's satellite telecom industry;
- To establish an independent satellite navigation and positioning system. This will be achieved by setting up a navigation and positioning satellite group step by step and developing a relevant application system, which will eventually bring into being China's satellite navigation and positioning industry;
- To upgrade the overall level and capacity of China's launch vehicles. This will be achieved by improving the performance and reliability of the "Long-March" group, developing the next generation of launch vehicles with non-toxic, non-polluting, high- performance and low-cost specifications, forming a new group of launch vehicles and strengthening the capability of providing international commercial launching services;
- To realize manned spaceflight and establish an initially complete R&D and testing system for manned space projects;
- To establish a coordinated and complete national satellite remote-sensing application system by building various related ground application systems through overall planning, setting up a remote-sensing data receiving, processing and distributing system covering the whole country for data sharing, and forming a fairly complete application system in major application fields of satellite remote-sensing; and
- To develop space science and explore outer space by developing a scientific research and technological experiment satellite group of the next generation, strengthening studies of space micro-gravity, space material science, space life science, space environment and space astronomy, and carrying out pre-study for outer space exploration centering on the exploration of the moon.
Meanwhile, the white paper defines China's long-term development targets for its space industry in the next 20 years or more as follows:
-- To achieve industrialization and marketization of space technology and space applications. The exploration and utilization of space resources shall meet a wide range of demands of economic construction, state security, science and technology development and social progress, and contribute to the strengthening of the comprehensive national strength;
- To establish a multi-function and multi-orbit space infrastructure composed of various satellite systems and set up a satellite ground application system that harmonizes spacecraft and ground equipment to form an integrated ground-space network system in full, constant and long-term operation in accordance with the overall planning of the state;
- To establish China's own manned spaceflight system and carry out manned spaceflight scientific research and technological experiments on a certain scale; and
- To obtain a more important place in the world in the field of space science with more achievements and carry out explorations and studies of outer space.
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