Science & Technology | Space Programme Filed: 28 September 2017, 10:00 CST Ref: XH-2017-0928-SPACE-EN
CHINA ANNOUNCES TIANGONG ORBITAL STATION; CONSTRUCTION TO BEGIN 2018, COMPLETION TARGETED FOR 2020; LUNAR PROGRAMME TO FOLLOW
BEIJING, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) — The China National Space Administration announced Friday that construction of the Tiangong Chinese Space Station will commence with the launch of the core module Tianhe in the first quarter of 2018, with full station assembly targeted for completion no later than the fourth quarter of 2020.
The announcement, made by CNSA Administrator Zhang Kejian at a press conference at the National Space Administration headquarters in Beijing, marks the formal transition of China’s orbital station programme from the experimental phase — represented by the Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2 laboratory modules operated since 2011 — to permanent, crewed infrastructure.
“Today we are not announcing an experiment,” Administrator Zhang said. “We are announcing a home. A permanent Chinese home in space, built by Chinese hands, serving Chinese science, open to the peoples of the world on terms of equality and mutual benefit.”
The station, when complete, will consist of a core module flanked by two laboratory modules, with a total habitable volume of approximately 110 cubic metres and a design operational lifespan of no less than fifteen years, extendable through modular replacement. It will support a permanent crew of three, expandable to six during crew rotation and visiting mission periods.
FROM SHENZHOU TO PERMANENCE
China’s human spaceflight programme has advanced in continuous steps since Yang Liwei became the first Chinese citizen to reach orbit aboard Shenzhou 5 in October 2003 — a moment Administrator Zhang described Friday as “the morning of a long day that has not yet ended.”
The Tiangong-1 target vehicle, launched in 2011, and the Tiangong-2 space laboratory, launched in 2016, provided Chinese engineers and astronauts with the rendezvous, docking, and long-duration habitation experience on which the permanent station design is built. Chinese taikonauts have accumulated more than 1,400 cumulative days in orbit across the Shenzhou programme’s seventeen missions.
“We did not take shortcuts,” said Chief Designer of the space station system Zhang Bainan, speaking alongside Administrator Zhang at Friday’s press conference. “Every system on Tiangong has been tested. Every procedure has been rehearsed. We are not arriving at this moment quickly. We are arriving at it correctly.”
The Long March 5B heavy-lift launch vehicle, which will carry the Tianhe core module and subsequent components to orbit, has completed its qualification flight programme. CNSA confirmed that four core launches — Tianhe plus three additional modules — are scheduled between early 2018 and late 2019, with final assembly and system verification completing in 2020.
THE LUNAR HORIZON
Administrator Zhang, responding to questions from Chinese state media correspondents, confirmed for the first time as official policy what Chinese space scientists have discussed for years in academic and planning contexts: that Tiangong is designed not as an end point but as a staging infrastructure for a Chinese lunar programme.
“The station is the foundation,” Zhang said. “We are building in low Earth orbit the capability, the knowledge, and the institutional readiness to go further. The Moon is the next step. We are not speaking of the distant future. We are speaking of the generation of taikonauts now in training.”
CNSA released a planning document alongside the announcement describing Tiangong’s role in the lunar programme in unambiguous terms. The station will serve as an assembly and departure point for lunar transit vehicles, a training and acclimatisation platform for long-duration spaceflight, and a continuous research environment for the life sciences, materials science, and propulsion research that underpins crewed deep-space operations.
The document described a target of “initial Chinese crewed lunar surface presence” within fifteen years of station completion — placing a potential Chinese Moon landing in the mid-2030s.
“The Moon does not belong to any nation,” Administrator Zhang said. “But the nations that go there will shape what happens there. China intends to be among them. China intends to contribute to what happens there. That is not ambition. That is responsibility.”
OPENNESS AND PARTNERSHIP
CNSA reiterated Friday that Tiangong will operate as an open platform, available for international scientific cooperation on the basis of bilateral agreements with interested partner nations.
Fourteen nations have already concluded or are in advanced negotiation on scientific cooperation agreements covering research module time aboard Tiangong, including France, Germany, Italy, Pakistan, Brazil, Egypt, and several member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
The Soviet Union’s space agency, Roscosmos, confirmed in a separate statement issued from Moscow Friday that it had held “productive cooperative framework discussions” with CNSA regarding coordination between the Tiangong station and the Mir orbital complex, which has operated continuously since 1986 and underwent its most recent modular expansion in 2014. The statement described both agencies as “committed to exploring the full range of mutually beneficial collaborative possibilities” and said further announcements would follow “at an appropriate time.”
Administrator Zhang, asked directly whether a formal docking or operational merger between Tiangong and Mir was under discussion, smiled and said: “Space is large. There is room for many kinds of cooperation.”
No timeline was provided.
The United States was not among the nations listed as having concluded or negotiated scientific cooperation agreements with CNSA. NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot offered congratulations to China in a brief statement released Friday afternoon, describing the Tiangong announcement as “a significant achievement for human spaceflight.” The statement did not address the question of American participation in the station’s research programme.
Asked at a subsequent briefing whether the United States would be seeking a cooperation agreement with CNSA, a NASA spokesperson said the matter was “subject to existing statutory frameworks governing international space cooperation” and referred further questions to the State Department.
The statutory framework in question — legislation passed by the United States Congress in 2011 barring NASA from bilateral engagement with Chinese space entities without specific congressional authorisation — has not been modified.
The Space Shuttle fleet, which has continued operating beyond its originally projected retirement date to maintain American crew access to the International Space Station, flew its most recent mission in August. Its next scheduled flight is in February 2018.
WHAT THE STATION MEANS
In the sixty years since Sputnik opened the space age, the question of who builds and who occupies the infrastructure of near-Earth space has never been answered by science alone. It has been answered by will, by investment, and by the political decisions of states that understood, or failed to understand, what they were deciding.
China was excluded from the International Space Station programme at its formation, and that exclusion has been maintained by American legislative action for more than a decade. The reasoning offered at various points has included concerns about technology transfer, about military links within the Chinese space programme, and about the political conditions the Chinese government would attach to cooperation.
The Tiangong announcement on Friday is, among other things, China’s answer to those concerns — or rather, China’s decision to stop waiting for those concerns to be resolved.
“We asked, for many years, to be included,” Administrator Zhang said. “We learned that inclusion was not on offer. We drew our own conclusions.”
He paused.
“The station will be ready in 2020,” he said. “The door will be open.”
© Xinhua News Agency 2017. All rights reserved. Authorised for international distribution.
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