[FPSPACE] article about Chinese space program on Spacedaily...with excerpts below

[Peter Pesavento]

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/china-04zw.html

via Xinhua New Agency, Beijing....


This appears to be a measured plan....
 
The aims of China's space activities are: to explore outer space, and learn more about the cosmos and the Earth; to utilize outer space for peaceful purposes, promote mankind's civilization and social progress, and benefit the whole of mankind; and to meet the growing demands of economic construction, national security, science and technology development and social progress, protect China's national interests and build up the comprehensive national strength.

China carries out its space activities in accordance with the following principles:

- Adhering to the principle of long-term, stable and sustainable development and making the development of space activities cater to and serve the state's comprehensive development strategy.

The Chinese government attaches great importance to the significant role of space activities in implementing the strategy of revitalizing the country with science and education and that of sustainable development, as well as in economic construction, national security, science and technology development and social progress.

The development of space activities is encouraged and supported by the government as an integral part of the state's comprehensive development strategy.

- Upholding the principle of independence, self-reliance and self-renovation and actively promoting international exchanges and cooperation. China shall rely on its own strength to tackle key problems and make breakthroughs in space technology.

Meanwhile, due attention shall be given to international cooperation and exchanges in the field of space technology, and self-renovation in space technology shall be combined organically with technology import on the principles of mutual benefit and reciprocity.

- Selecting a limited number of targets and making breakthroughs in key areas according to the national situation and strength. China carries out its space activities for the purpose of satisfying the fundamental demands of its modernization drive.

A limited number of projects that are of vital significance to the national economy and social development are selected so as to concentrate strength to tackle major difficulties and achieve breakthroughs in key fields.

- Enhancing the social and economic returns of space activities and paying attention to the motivation of technological progress. China strives to explore a more economical and efficient development road for its space activities so as to achieve the integration of technological advance and economic rationality.

- Sticking to integrated planning, combination of long-term development and short-term development, combination of spacecraft and ground equipment, and coordinated development. The Chinese government develops space technology, application and science through integrated planning and rational arrangement in the aim of promoting the comprehensive and coordinated development of China's space activities.

Development Targets


The short-term development targets (for the next decade) are:

- 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 direct 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 qualities, 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.

The long-term development targets (for the next 20 years or more) are 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.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/attachments/20040807/c8824ba3/attachment.html