The space race, which began decades ago, is here to stay. Only now, there are reports which indicate that China might have been rapidly developing in this arena ever so discreetly.
China Releases Extremely Detailed Photos of Mars, Beating Competing Space Projects
China National Space Administration (CNSA) recently released a set of high-resolution photos of Mars. The images were captured by their native spacecraft, the Tianwen-1, which has been on Mars since February 2021. As of this writing, the spacecraft has orbited the planet more than 1,300 times.
The length of Tianwen-1's stay around Mars helped it capture extremely sharp photos of the planet. Its competitor, the U.S. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, has been outpaced by the quality of China's images which produced a full-surface survey that scientists and colony planners can find very useful.
But beyond being able to orbit Mars, experts consider the spacecraft's travel to Mars as another feat in its own rite. This is also because China has made it successfully there, even if this also happens to be the first time they pursued a project like this on their own. For better measure, NASA says that Mars missions have only around a 50% success rate.
Apart from Mars, China has its fair share of expeditions to the moon as well. According to reports, China is the first nation to have soft-landed a probe on the moon's dark side through its Chang'e 4 lander. This landmark moment in China's space venture happened in January 2019.
Where Is Beijing Headed in its Space Project?
As of now, China also has its own space station orbiting Earth's atmosphere. According to reports, China pursued this project because of the ban on their participation in the International Space Station due to security and privacy threats. Their space station will be composed of three modules, with the first one, Tiangong space station, already operational in May 2021. Two more modules, Mengtian and Wentian, are slated for launch this year, 2022.
Due to many factors, China has been able to maintain its momentum on its space venture discreetly. Experts, however, point it primarily to Beijing's lack of transparency in whatever they are doing. Most of the details on the missions they partake in only get published when they want to. This also means that they have the freedom to keep risky missions away from the public eye.
What could people expect in the future? China might start making more noise about its space venture in the coming years. This is also because of their past successes, finally giving Beijing the confidence to flaunt their space accomplishments to the world. Just recently, CNSA published a new white paper titled "China's Space Program: A 2021 Perspective." However, CNSA's reluctance to place Beijing's failed experiments in the paper sparked the curiosity of many.
Some next steps for Beijing's space missions include the launch of a new space telescope, the Xuntian, which will be linked to their Tiangong space station. There are also plans revealed for their future ZengHe asteroid sample return mission and some more lunar probes.
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