Chang’e-5 lunar spacecraft

Tag: Chang’e-5 lunar spacecraft

China vs the US and the Risks of a Space Rivalry

December 15, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by Sarah Zheng November 29, 2020 (scmp.com)

• The recent voyage of China’s Chang’e 5 lunar spacecraft to bring Moon samples back to Earth was more than a signal of China’s ambitions to US military officials. To Space Force General John Raymond it represented a threat that China and Russia pose to American access to space. “The two countries seek to stop US access to space, Raymond posted on the DoD website. “[T]hey are developing capabilities that would negate the US advantage.” Raymond is calling for the US to work more closely with its allies, to “stay ahead of the growing threat.”

• Raymond’s approach would continue to deny China access to American technology and ensure a clear separation between the US and Chinese space programs. But Matthew Daniels, a senior fellow at Georgetown University, notes that the division between the US and Chinese space programs is due to US barriers, resulting in almost no direct links between the two countries in space technology research, development and operations. The US is ahead in technologies such as reusable launch systems and satellite manufacturing, but China is narrowing the gap. So cutting the US off from Chinese advancements in technology could come at a cost for the United States and miss an opportunity to reduce the risk of political conflict. So should the US cooperate with China in some areas or continue to freeze it out?

• Further limits on the transfer of space technologies to China could be carried out with still more barriers to US commercial space technology transfers, extra limits on US civil space engagement and coordination, diplomatic pressure on third parties working with both the US and China, and visa restrictions on Chinese aerospace researchers. In the long term, however, it could encourage China to establish a stronger space technology ecosystem of its own. China would then have more of a chance to build alternative international coalitions, including by drawing in Europe and Russia.

• “The current separation will probably continue to slow China in the near term,” says Daniels. “[T]his effect will diminish, however, and it may help grow indigenous supply chains and markets in China.” The US could thereby lose its international leadership in space, while missing a chance to obtain strategic information about China’s space activities and reducing the opportunity to manage crises and conflict.”

When the Chang’e 5 lunar spacecraft lifted off from a launch pad in southern China this week it was not just a signal of China’s ambitions to bring moon samples back to Earth. Half a world away in the United States, the launch was a sign to US Space Force General John Raymond of the threat that China – together with Russia – poses in blocking American access to space.

“The two countries seek to stop US access to space, and they are developing capabilities that would negate the US advantage,” he said in an interview published on the US Department of Defence website.

Raymond called for the US to work more closely with allies, to “stay ahead of the growing threat” from China.

It is an approach that would continue to deny China access to American technology and ensure a clear separation between the US and Chinese space programmes.

But some observers say that this could come at a cost for the United States and miss an opportunity to reduce the risk of conflict.
The two space programmes are already “substantially separated”, according to Matthew Daniels, a senior expert for the Office of the US Secretary of Defence and a senior fellow at Georgetown University.

In a report published in October published by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Daniels said the division was due mostly to US barriers, resulting in almost no direct links between the two countries in space technology research, development and operations.

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US General Describes ‘China Threat’ in Space, Heating Up Rivalry

December 8, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by Kristin Huang November 26, 2020 (scmp.com)

• With the launch of China’s Chang’e-5 lunar spacecraft and Beijing’s first lunar mission to bring Moon rock samples back to Earth, US Space Force General John Raymond remarked that China was a threat that could block American access to space, and that the US had to strengthen ties with its allies to handle the “threat” from China and Russia over space.

• Meanwhile, a successful mission would make China just the third country to have retrieved lunar samples, after the US and the former Soviet Union. Xu Hongliang, secretary general of China’s National Space Administration, told a space aviation forum on Wednesday that there were more Chang’e missions to come and China was planning to build an international research station on the Moon. Xu also said China would explore small celestial bodies, retrieve samples from Mars and pass by Jupiter and back again. Said Xu, “[W]e welcome international space agencies to participate in China’s future lunar and deep-space exploration cooperation.”

• The space rivalry between the world’s largest two economies is heating up. Beijing has been planning to build its own space station for decades as an alternative to the International Space Station, from which China has been excluded by the US because of security concerns.

• US officials say that China and Russia show threatening behavior regarding space. Raymond referred to an incident in 2007 when China hit and destroyed a disused Chinese weather satellite, testing its own missile capabilities. Until then, space had been considered a “benign domain,” but it was now it is contested. “China and Russia caused this shift in the strategic environment,” said Raymond. China and Russia’s capabilities include jamming of GPS and communication satellites, and directed energy and kinetic destruction of US assets via missiles on the ground.

• Raymond noted that “space really underpins … all of our instruments of national power. [I]t provides huge economic opportunity, scientific opportunity and military opportunity”, and that the US is eager to enhance ties with its allies… in space.” “We have to have different space architectures and we have to have partnerships,” Raymond said. “We’ve got to make sure that we stay ahead of this growing threat.”

• In the first nine months of 2020, China has sent 29 satellites into space – two more than the US. But observers say that China is still lagging behind the US, as private companies such as SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have taken the industry lead.

• China has grappled with launch failures. An optical remote-sensing satellite failed to enter its preset orbit in September, following another failed launch two months earlier, the Kuaizhou-11 commercial solid rocket, with two satellites on board. China also had satellite launch failures in March and April.

Rivalry between China and the United States in space exploration has reached new heights, with a US general saying China was a threat that could

block American access to space.

Just days after the launch of Beijing’s first lunar mission to bring samples back to Earth, US Space Force General John Raymond said the United States had to strengthen ties with its allies to handle the “threat” from China and Russia over space.

Raymond’s comments came as the head of the Chinese space administration said the nation would launch more lunar probes and invite other countries to join China on its missions.

The China-US space rivalry intensified after a Long March-5 rocket carrying the Chang’e-5 lunar spacecraft blasted off from Wenchang, Hainan province, on Tuesday morning.

In the first mission of its kind by any country in more than 40 years, the 8-tonne spacecraft comprises four components designed to bring samples back to Earth.

If the mission is successful, it would make China just the third country to have retrieved lunar samples, after the US and the former Soviet Union. But China’s space ambitions do not stop there.

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