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Editor’s note: On November 26, 1975, China successfully launched its very first recoverable satellite. Precisely 22 years later in 2007, the China National Space Administration released the first image of the moon's surface sent back by its first unmanned lunar probe, Chang'e-1.
The Chinese government has released a white paper on its space activities several times. It has effectively announced that China has become a big player in space exploration, but not an advanced country. Therefore, becoming an advanced country or a technical power in space will be the most important goal in the next decades.
Innovation has therefore become the most important factor in this process.
China releases the first image of the moon's surface on November 26, 2007.
Hard times
China started its space program about 60 years ago when it was far behind the US and the former Soviet Union and needed to catch up. From the beginning, the Soviets provided some useful but very limited help that lasted only for a very short period. That left China to fulfill its space dream completely by itself.
During the early days, China developed its launch vehicles, satellites and other infrastructure.There was broadly little innovation in these activities, but because China can only develop spacecraft by itself, there is some innovation on subsystems and certain technologies.
Since 1990s, with more experience derived from past space activities and with more investment, China has become more ambitious and more confident in space technology.
A ground-based terminal linked to BeiDou Navigation Satellite System.
Chinese space administrators started the manned space program and lunar exploration project and began construction of the satellite navigation constellation. There still not much innovation in systems, because other superpowers had gone this route before.
However, China does have many innovations on technologies. The power output of the Shenzhou spaceship is even greater than the first-generation space stations. The rendezvous and docking microwave radar is the smallest and most powerful one in the world. Although China's future space station is only half the size of Russia's MIR space station, it can do many more experiments than the MIR. China's BeiDou constellation can provide not only navigation signals, but also short text messages. This distinctive feature has proved very useful in disaster reduction.
Space dreams
In the future, to become an advanced country in space, China needs more innovative ideas on system design. For instance, China has combined an orbiter, a lander and a rover on its first Mars exploration mission. No other country has done this on its first attempt before. Obviously, there are great challenges on technology and innovation is the only choice to achieve it.
The Long March-2F carrier rocket carrying China's Shenzhou-11 manned spacecraft blasts off from the launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, northwest of China, on October 17, 2016.
China should not follow the steps of other countries in the future.
The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration has great achievements but also made many mistakes. The choice of the space shuttle program as its only way to space has killed 14 astronauts and even now it can only access the International Space Station by Russia's Soyuz spaceships. The cancellation of the constellation program and the Asteroid Redirection Mission are the right choices, but the two programs had already wasted too much money. Therefore, the redesign of the whole architecture will be very critical.
China is still a developing country and only has limited budgets for space. It can only choose some important fields, such as the LEO space station, Mars exploration and maybe, a human lunar mission. Placing a flag on the moon's surface is not the most important issue, but having the capability to do so.
(CGTN)
