[新闻] 美国媒体：中国未来的宏伟空间计划

After Shenzhou - China's Space Plans Boosted Following Successful Mission
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
posted: 01:15 pm ET
05 January 2003

After orbiting Earth for nearly a week, a reentry section of China's Shenzhou 4 spacecraft touched down early Sunday evening (Beijing time) in Inner Mongolia.

The capsule's landing strengthens the outlook that the country is not only ready to boost humans into Earth orbit, but to expand its space skills by working with other nations, and even reaching beyond Earth orbit to the Moon.

China's emerging space capacity could lead to increased cooperation with the United States, although a NASA spokesperson cautions that several country-to-country political issues must be first addressed.

Shoot for the Moon

The unpiloted flight of Shenzhou 4 is near identical to a crew-carrying mission, according to Chinese space officials. That flight could occur later this year - perhaps piloted by more than one crewmember, according to Western space experts, picked from a cadre of candidate space flyers now in training.

Shenzhou 4's mission has not only shored up China's confidence in moving ahead with human spaceflight, but other projects -- including lunar exploration -- are under discussion.

Guo Baozhu, vice administrator of the Chinese National Space Academy, told a Space Summit being held in Bangalore, India on Saturday that a lunar exploration program is in the study phase and is awaiting government approval.

Whether such a program is focused on robotic exploration, leading to human exploration, was not immediately clear.

China has 12 different launch vehicles, Guo said, with the heaviest lifter of the rocket family capable of hurling 5.1 tons of payload into geostationary transfer orbit. China's future space agenda will include an eight-satellite constellation for disaster monitoring, data relay satellites and a new satellite to broadcast directly to homes, he told the summit.

As reported in the People's Daily, Guo told the summit that China is willing to cooperate with other nations in space science and applications.

Open door at NASA?

But for China to engage in cooperative ventures with NASA, several thorny issues are in need of tender loving care.

"The U.S. government has consistently stated to China that any new cooperation between NASA and China is predicated on China's adopting more stringent export controls, to resolve U.S. concerns about their export of proliferation technology," Debra Rahn, a NASA spokeswoman focused on the space agency's international affairs, told SPACE.com .

The key policy issues to be handled between the two nations are the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT).

If such issues are successfully addressed, then the United States could establish a dialogue with China on potential civil space cooperation, Rahn said.

"But the first thing that has to happen is to adhere to the all of the non-proliferation acts. That would have to be worked through the U.S. State Department, not NASA. That is the first step that would have to happen," Rahn said.

Nose-to-nose docking

Phillip Clark, a long-time China space watcher in the United Kingdom, told SPACE.com that the Shenzhou 4 mission was a key step in flying "yuhang yangs" -- Chinese astronauts -- in the future.

"All in all, this has been a further fully-successful mission, with the yuhang yangs actually practicing inside the spacecraft before launch took place. This is highly reminiscent of what happened in the Soviet space program," Clark said. "The Chinese yuhang yuans may have seen Shenzhou before, but this was the

first time that they were allowed to 'play' with it at the launch site."

The orbital control of Shenzhou 4 has been far tighter on this flight than on the last two previous spaceship tests, Clark said. He said the Chinese have now done all of the maneuvers necessary for a rendezvous-docking mission between two back-to-back Shenzhou launches.

"This indicates to me that they will progress quite quickly to an orbital docking. Not Shenzhou 5 and possibly not Shenzhou 6, but maybe Shenzhou 7 and Shenzhou 8 will do a nose-to-nose docking," Clark said.

While Chinese space planners have had some schedule slips, "I think that the Chinese are aiming for a Shenzhou [flight] every 8-9 months at present," Clark said.

Bearing that in mind, Clark added, October is the anniversary of the Communist revolution in China. Therefore, a first piloted flight could be pencilled in for September, he said.