【瑞安市】China’s Spaceflight Technology Calls for Cooperation

李庆芳 2021-08-16 16:44:40

After a decade of preparation, China successfully launched the Shenzhou-12 manned spaceship on June 17, ushering in a new era for humanity’s exploration of space. The crew, consisting of three best taikonauts in China, has perfectly executed extravehicular activities and operations with the help of an intelligent robotic arm. The mission will help test technologies related to the construction of the space station. So far, China’s manned space program has now entered a new phase.

However, it took China more than two thousand years to travel in the Milky Way. China’s space dream dated back to pre-Qin period. Legends, like Quafoo chasing after the sun and Goddess Chang’e flying to the moon, astronomic records, including sunspot activities, meteoric showers, solar and lunar eclipse, calendars for agriculture and many astronomical instruments are all landmark contributions in the history of humanity. With national independence and liberation in 1949, China began to concentrate on its own development in all aspects and did a lot of fruitful work in space exploration, such as launching the first man-made satellite on its own.

Until 1992 Chinese government started a space program with a three-stage strategy, which set clear goals for every stage. The goal of the first stage was to send an astronaut into space, which was achieved in 2003. The goal of the second stage involved sending manned spaceships up to space labs where astronauts could live temporarily and conduct experiments, which was also accomplished nearly five years ago. The goad of the third stage is to build a permanent space station, which was ushered in with the launching of the core module Tianhe. China’s space dream is part of the greatest dream of Chinese people. To realize it means realizing the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation but not dominating the space.

While excitement has grown in the latest Shenzhou-12 mission at home and abroad, accusations increased in some western countries, which concerned about the intentions and ambitions of China’s growing space program. Chinese people always believed that outer space is a common treasure of humanity, and that its exploration and peaceful use are the common pursuits of the whole mankind. With this faith China has not only been devoted to build its space station into a space lab to benefit all people but also has made it into an open platform for international cooperation. According to CMSA, extensive cooperation of 17 countries will be carried out aboard China’s space station, covering space science and applications, joints flights and the functional expansion of the space station.

Cooperation is a key characteristic of China’s past and future space projects because space exploration should be for the many and not the privileged few. China holds an open attitude towards cooperation in space and will always welcome cooperation proposals concerning space projects based on equality, mutual benefit and peaceful utilization.