Chinese Space Station and More

Earlier this month China launched the Tiangong-2 ("Heavenly Palace") into orbit to replace the  Tiangong-1, which has been in orbit for the last 5 years and is expected to fall back to Earth late next year. These are really test missions that will lead to a permanent space station, planned for 2020.

Let's not forget that China has already placed a rover on the Moon (the Yutu shown above) and plans to send a rover to Mars in 2020 (see images below). All of which shows the nation is willing to find its own way of other nations do not wish to cooperate. 

Just as we have competition between the private sector entities in the U.S. space industry, maybe this competition between nations, which also includes countries such as India and Japan, is a smart way to allow different approaches and technologies to flourish. While I think an interstellar mission may need more centralization, we are far from that now (at least at the human level) and the competition in the meantime may help us to reach that goal more quickly. 

So best wishes to China and the other space-faring nations. 

Chinese Space Station Open for Business

"The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) have agreed to work together to develop the space capabilities of United Nations Member States via opportunities on-board China’s future space station...Under the agreements, UNOOSA and CMSA will work together to enable United Nations Member States, particularly developing countries, to conduct space experiments on-board China’s space station, as well as to provide flight opportunities for astronauts and payload engineers."

--Press statement by UNOOSA posted June 16, 2016. This will become more relevant as the United States and its partners start to wind down the International Space Station and end the program by 2024.

Russian Space Program: High Expectations, but Questionable Delivery

Russian President Putin is again talking about building a space station, but with recent rocket failures, it appears Russian needs to get back to basics.  Last week, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin stated:

The task to create a new orbital station has been set by the president. This week we will report plans on the development of piloted cosmonautics to the president.

However, this announcement follows the second failure of a major rocket mission in the past month, the first being the Russian resupply spacecraft Progress 59 to the International Space Station followed by the failure of a Russian Proton-M rocket carrying a Mexican satellite.  

And all of this follows continued stories of budget cuts, construction problems at Vostochny Cosmodrome, the new space launch facility, and continued corruption within the space program.  Quoting the Deputy Prime Minister again, he stated:

With such a level of moral decay, one should not be surprised at the high accident rate.

In these tight times, expansion and corruption are not good bed fellows.  Russia needs to refocus its priorities and clean up its ranks if it wants to get off the ground. 

Image Credit:   Business Insider.  Then-Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, second right, looks at a plan while visiting a site of a new launch facility, cosmodrome Vostochny, outside Uglegorsk, some 3,600 miles (5800 kilometers) east of Moscow, Russia, in 2010.

A Second Space Station?

I am not so sure the accomplished very much with our current International Space Station, and yet NASA is now proposing a second station.  This new station, called the "gateway spacecraft," would be located on the far side of the moon at the Earth-Moon Lagrange Point 2, approximately 38,000 miles from the moon and 277,000 miles from Earth.  At this spot the spacecraft would be in an equilibrium between the Earth and moon, thereby requiring little energy to remain in place.  Construction would begin sometime around 2019.

And what would this new station do?  Presumably it will serve as a way-station for trips to the moon and Mars. Now that sounds a little more intriguing than simply circling the Earth, which can be done by any satellite.  Mark K. Matthews in the Orlando Sentinel writes: 

Potential missions include the study of nearby asteroids or dispatching robotic trips to the moon that would gather moon rocks and bring them back to astronauts at the outpost. The outpost also would lay the groundwork for more-ambitious trips to Mars' moons and even Mars itself, about 140 million miles away on average...

It gives purpose to the Orion space capsule and the Space Launch System rocket, which are being developed at a cost of about $3 billion annually. It involves NASA's international partners, as blueprints for the outpost suggest using a Russian-built module and components from Italy. And the outpost would represent a baby step toward NASA's ultimate goal: human footprints on Mars.

This is encouraging, if funding can be located.  What is interesting is that I am seeing very little discussion outside of the Orlando story.  I hope to learn more about this story and this possibility.

Note:  The photo used above is from NASA:

The International Space Station can be seen as a small object in upper left of this image of the moon in the early evening Jan. 4 in the skies over the Houston area flying at an altitude of 390.8 kilometers (242.8 miles). The space station can occasionally be seen in the night sky with the naked eye and a pair of field binoculars.

Another Chinese Space Launch

China sent its first woman astronaut (Liu Yang) to space this week as the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft successfully docked with the orbiting Tiangong-1 space laboratory on Monday.  The Tiangong-1 was placed in orbit last fall as a prototype of a larger station to follow in 2020.  Over a 10-day period, three Chinese astronauts will stay aboard the "space station" to conduct tests. 

The great space race continues, with both the private sector (SpaceX) and other nations taking the lead.  China has already moved up its manned moon-landing to 2016, showing an increasing confidence in its space capabilities.  While the U.S. has lost its shuttles and will lose the $100 billion International Space Station by 2020, others are stepping up the challenge with broad plans for expansion.  SpaceX is even talking about $500,000 trips to Mars while the U.S. has no such plans on the drawing board.