
In a stirring announcement, China has unveiled plans to delve deeper into the mysteries of the universe by launching a new telescope. The celestial tool, whimsically christened ‘Xuntian’, will be positioned aboard the Tiangong space station, where it will co-orbit with the station, as per a statement by Lin Xiqiang, spokesperson and deputy director general of the Chinese Manned Space Agency.
While no specifics were divulged regarding the installation timetable, China’s state media postulates that this groundbreaking telescope will enable comprehensive surveys and celestial cartography.
The historical annals of China reveal a robust tradition of scrutinizing the planetary movements and stellar formations, a practice spanning thousands of years of its rich history. In the contemporary realm, the East Asian nation has been vigorously striving to establish itself as a trailblazer in space exploration and astronomical science.
This monumental announcement was made on the threshold of the voyage of three Chinese astronauts – Tang Hongbo, Tang Shengjie, and Jiang Xinlin. This team is slated to relieve the current crew, who have diligently served on the space station for a duration of six months. Veteran astronaut Tang, who spearheaded a three-month space expedition in 2021, leads the exciting mission scheduled for Thursday.
In recent years, China has demonstrated significant progress in cultivating its formidable stature as a budding space power. Pioneering missions such as a manned lunar mission by the decade’s end and other space endeavors are part of China’s ambitious blueprint.
This ambitious foray into exploring the cosmos is seen not only as a rivalry with the United States but also an endeavor to draw backing from a consortium of nations comprising Europe, Southeast Asia, and South America among others.
China’s construction of its space station was a decisive move undertaken following its exclusion from the International Space Station, predominantly due to American concerns over the control exerted by the People’s Liberation Army on the program.
China’s initiation into space expeditions with its maiden manned space mission in 2003, secured its position as the third nation alongside the former Soviet Union and the U.S to deploy a person into space.
Though the US enjoys a significant vantage point over China, courtesy of plentiful resources, supply chains, and unmatched capabilities, China has made headway in certain aspects of space exploration too. These include bringing back lunar soil samples for the first time in years and successfully landing a rover on the moon’s uncharted far side.
Concurrently, the U.S. has reaffirmed its commitment to resume crewed lunar missions by 2025 with the collaborative efforts of private entities like SpaceX and Blue Origin. Both nations have launched rovers on Mars independently and China aspires to replicate the US-led landing of a spacecraft on an asteroid.
The new crew on the space station faces the arduous task of maintaining its solar panels that have been impaired due to the onslaught of cosmic debris. A considerable proportion of this debris is the remnants of a Chinese satellite obliterated in 2007 by a domestically manufactured missile, in a display of might against competitors like the U.S. and its allies.