China has been working on anti-satellite weapons systems (ASAT) since 1964. They have been developing three types of ASAT systems including Directed Energy, Micro-satellites and Direct Fire. There was an interruption of progress during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.
Today I am going to talk about recent Chinese satellite launches. In 2007 China launched two navigation satellite, an ocean survey satellite, a Nigerian communication satellite, two remote sensing satellites, two communication satellites, a Brazilian remote sensing satellite and a lunar orbiter.
Today I am going to start a series of posts about Chinese launch facilities. The first facility I am going to cover is the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center(JSLC). The JSLC is located about a thousand miles west of Beijing in the Gobi desert. It is over three thousand feet above sea level. The very dry location which has extended daylight hours.
I mentioned in a previous post that China has been building and launching satellites for other countries. This is not a unique practice since other countries have launched satellites for countries without their own space programs. However, in most cases, these other countries launch services have been aimed at making money. In China's case, there seems to be more to it.
In the fall of 2011, China launched its first space station, the Tiangong 1, aboard a Long March 2F/G rocket. It was launched into orbit without a crew. Its mission was to serve as manned laboratory and a test platform for orbital rendezvous. The Tiangong 1was remotely maneuver into different obits during its mission. The Tiangong 1 is intended to be the first in a series of three Tiangong space stations with the largest to be launched in 2023.
In my last blog post I brought my coverage of the Chinese Space Program up to 2002 and the final unmanned launched of a space craft capable of taking astronauts to orbit. Today, I am going to talk about the first manned missions launched by the Chinese.
The watershed events of Mao's death in 1976 and Dong Xiaoping's rise to power in 1978 brought many changes in China. The development of the China's space program slowed and some military missile projects were cancelled. But the space program recovered from the slow down and new projects were launched.
The Cultural Revolution, which was started by Mao in 1966, convulsed China. During the Cultural Revolution, many bureaucrats, teachers, and other professionals were purged and forced to work in the countryside as Mao sought to removed "capitalist" elements from positions of authority. The turbulence that ensued did serious social and economic damage to China.
At the end of World War II, the Russians and the Americans both captured German rocket scientists and rocket technology. Mao Zedong led a communist revolution and rose to power in China in1949. Concerned with the U.S. threat to use nuclear weapons in the Korean War in the early Fifties, Mao decided that China needed to have nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them in order to be respected and taken seriously by the other major powers.
I have been fascinated by the China since I was a child. Their civilization has existed for thousands of years. Periodically, they would have a strong leader who would unite the country and provide stability for exploration, innovation and trade. Then their empire would collapse from corruption and civil war or external invasion. After a time, a strong leader would arise to unify the nation and the cycle would repeat.
