There are major national players in space exploration and exploitation such as the U.S., Russia, China and the European Union. There are minor national players such as India, Japan, Israel and others. And there are new players who want to get into the game such as New Zealand.
        Rocket Lab is a U.S. company in the international space industry. It was founded in 2006 by Peter Beck from New Zealand. A primary financier named Mark Rocket was a director at R.L. from 2007 to 2001. R.L. has a New Zealand subsidiary and carries out launches from New Zealand. They bill themselves as the first private company in the Southern Hemisphere to reach space. In 2010, R.L. received a grant from the U.S. government to “… study a low cost space launcher to place nanosatellites into orbit.” Since 2013, R.L. has obtained tens of millions of dollars from investors.
        In late 2009, a tiny Atea-1 suborbital sounding rocket was successfully launched by R.L. from Great Mercury Island off the Coromandel Peninsula of New Zealand. It carried a minimal payload of a few pounds which had no telemetry and was not recovered.
        In July of 2015, R.L. identified a possible site for a launch complex on Kaitorete Spit near Chrischurch, the largest city on the South Island of New Zealand and a regional capitol. They hoped to have a launch complex constructed by the end of 2015. In November of 2015, R.L. announced that it would not build a launch complex at the Kaitorete Spit because of problems in obtaining resource consents for development on the Spit.
       In November of 2015, R.L. announced that they had chosen an alternate location for a launch complex on the Mahai Peninsula on the North Island of New Zealand. The officials of the relevant government bodies were eager to work with R.L. and they approved R.L. requests in a week. The new facility is licensed to launch a satellite once every seventy two hours. The license they were offered for the Kaitorete Spit would only have allowed one launch a month. The launch complex at Mahai Peninsula opened September of 2016.
       While working on launch sites, R.L. designed and built the Electron, a lightweight launch vehicle that can carry up to three hundred and thirty pounds to a three hundred mile sun-synchronous orbit. The Electron is a two-stage liquid fuel rocket that was constructed mostly of carbon composites to reduce weight. The engine was made by 3D printing with a metal powder.
       The Mahai facility opened in September of 2016. There is an exclusion zone of five miles from the launch pad at the complex. After the site becomes commercially operational, the exclusion zone radius will be reduced. The first test launch of an Electron rocket took place in late May of 2017.
        R.L. developed the Electron in the belief that the growing business in the launch of small satellites was not being well served by the current fleet of big launch vehicles. It is estimated that when their business matures, R.L. will be able to offer five million dollar satellite launches.
Rocket Lab Launch Complex:

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       I started this blog with a series of articles about the ambitions of China in space exploration and exploitation. They are currently working on an Earth orbit space station and returning men to the Moon to staff a permanent lunar base. One part of their preparations is having people live in a simulated Moon base on Earth.
        Four post-graduate students from Beihang University in Beijing will take part in the experiment. The two men and two women will enter the “Yuegong-1” this week for an initial stay of sixty days. Another group will enter the Lunar Palace for a two hundred day stay after the first mission. Following that, the original quartet will return for another one hundred and sixty day mission. The Lunar Palace was used for a successful trial in 2014.
        The Lunar Palace is a seventeen hundred square foot cabin. It has two plant cultivation modules, a living area, four bed cubicles, a common room, a bathroom, a waste treatment room and a room for raising animals. The Lunar Palace will be sealed after the volunteers enter and there will be no inputs from the outside world. Human wastes will be treated with a bio-fermentation process. Crops and vegetables will be grown with food and human waste byproducts. Chinese state media says that the Lunar Palace is the “world’s most advanced closed-loop life-support technology so far.”
       One of the volunteers said “I will be in charge of the treatment of solid waste, urine, shredding straw, threshing wheat, processing food and other work.” He went on to say that other members of the team will have responsibilities for growing crops, monitoring the health of the crew and handling supply inventory.
       There have been two other bioregenerative life-support base experiments in the U.S. but the Lunar Palace is the first such base in China. The Lunar Palace is the first bioregenerative life-support base which includes microorganisms, plants, animals and humans.
       Although China’s plans for a lunar colony do not call for a manned flight to the Moon for another decade, the Lunar Palace is part of a program to prepare astronauts for extended stays on the Moon. China is putting billions of dollars into space missions as it races to catch up with the U.S. and Europe which both have plans to set up manned bases on the Moon by 2022. China places great symbolic significance in its space program. It feels that China’s global status is connected to its success in space exploration and exploitation.
       As I wrote in a recent post on this blog, China is very interested in participating with the European Space Agency in the creation of a “Moon Village” by 2022. This would be a manned lunar base created by a consortium of nations along the lines of the International Space Station. If China does join the Moon Village project, then the lessons learned from the Lunar Palace experiment could prove to be useful even before China established its own lunar base.

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       There is a big debate in the U.S. and across the globe in other space-faring nations and organizations. The question being debated is whether the focus for the next phase of the exploration of space should be the Moon or Mars. At the moment, NASA is planning to stage a manned mission to Mars by the early 2030s while other groups are calling for a return to the Moon.
       The European Space Agency “is an intergovernmental organization of twenty two member states, dedicated to the exploration of space. Established in 1975 and headquartered in Paris, France, ESA has a worldwide staff of about two thousand and an annual budget of about six billion dollars.”
        “ESA’s space flight program includes human spaceflight; the launch and operation of unmanned exploration missions to other planets and the Moon; Earth observation, science and telecommunication; designing launch vehicles; and maintaining a major spaceport, at Kourou, French Guiana. The main European launch vehicle Ariane 5 is operated through Arianespace with ESA sharing in the costs of launching and further developing this launch vehicle.”
        The ESA is working on an international project for a manned lunar base which it refers to as the “Moon Village.” The Director General of the ESA describes its proposed “Moon Village” as “a potential international launching pad for future missions to Mars and a chance to develop space tourism or even lunar mining.” He said that the term “Moon Village” had been chosen deliberately to make the purpose of the project clear to the general public.
       “A village is something where different people are gathering with different capabilities, different opportunities, and then they build a community. But for me, it’s also a stepping-stone, a test bed … to go further, for instance, to Mars and beyond.” The ESA believes that “One driver of this renewed interest in the Moon is to assess the economic feasibility of using lunar resources for sustaining human surface-exploration activities,
        It has been reported by ESA spokesmen and Chinese media sources that the ESA and China are discussing a potential collaboration on a manned lunar outpost such as the Moon Village as well as other joint space ventures.
        Pal Hvistendahl, an ESA spokesman said that “The Chinese have a very ambitious moon program already in place. Space programs have changed since the space race of the ’60s. We recognize that to explore space for peaceful purposes, we need international cooperation.” China plans to visit the Moon before the end of this year to collect mineral samples from the visible side. Next year China intends to launch its first mission to the far side of the Moon to bring back mineral samples. The ESA hopes to be able to analyze the samples returned from the Moon by this year’s lunar mission.
       The Moon is only a few days away with current space propulsion technology. Mars is months away with the best engines. An expedition to Mars would basically be “on its own” if anything went wrong. Problems at a Moon base could be dealt with by emergency flights from Earth in a matter of days. It may be possible to use solar power to split lunar water into hydrogen and oxygen for fuel for flights beyond the Moon. For a lot of reasons, it makes sense to establish a manned base on the Moon before considering a colony on Mars.

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       Recently I blogged about six companies who were awarded grants by NASA for research on space habitats under the NASA NextSTEP program. Today I am going to write about the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program. The agency is “investing in 22 early-stage technology proposals that have the potential to transform future human and robotic exploration missions, introduce new exploration capabilities, and significantly improve current approaches to building and operating aerospace systems.” They will offer about one hundred and twenty five thousand dollar Phase I grants to twenty two companies for initial definition and analysis of their innovative concepts. The grants will run for about nine months and, if they show results, the companies can apply for Phase II grants. The selected 2017 Phase I proposals are:
A Synthetic Biology Architecture to Detoxify and Enrich Mars Soil for Agriculture, Adam Arkin, University of California, Berkeley
A Breakthrough Propulsion Architecture for Interstellar Precursor Missions, John Brophy, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California
Evacuated Airship for Mars Missions, John-Paul Clarke, Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta
Mach Effects for In Space Propulsion: Interstellar Mission, Heidi Fearn, Space Studies Institute in Mojave, California
Pluto Hop, Skip, and Jump, Benjamin Goldman, Global Aerospace Corporation in Irwindale, California
Turbolift, Jason Gruber, Innovative Medical Solutions Group in Tampa, Florida
Phobos L1 Operational Tether Experiment, Kevin Kempton, NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia
Gradient Field Imploding Liner Fusion Propulsion System, Michael LaPointe, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama
Massively Expanded NEA Accessibility via Microwave-Sintered Aerobrakes, John Lewis, Deep Space Industries, Inc., in Moffett Field, California
Dismantling Rubble Pile Asteroids with Area-of-Effect Soft-bots, Jay McMahon, University of Colorado, Boulder
Continuous Electrode Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion, Raymond Sedwick, University of Maryland, College Park
Sutter: Breakthrough Telescope Innovation for Asteroid Survey Missions to Start a Gold Rush in Space, Joel Sercel, TransAstra in Lake View Terrace, California
Direct Multipixel Imaging and Spectroscopy of an Exoplanet with a Solar Gravity Lens Mission, Slava Turyshev, JPL
Solar Surfing, Robert Youngquist, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida
A Direct Probe of Dark Energy Interactions with a Solar System Laboratory, Nan Yu, JPL
       If Phase I is successful and a company is awarded a Phase II grant, they can receive as much as a five hundred thousand dollar grant for a two-year study. During Phase II, the awardees “refine their designs and explore aspects of implementing the new technology.” This year’s Phase II grants are:
Venus Interior Probe Using In-situ Power and Propulsion, Ratnakumar Bugga, JPL
Remote Laser Evaporative Molecular Absorption Spectroscopy Sensor System, Gary Hughes, California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo
Brane Craft Phase II, Siegfried Janson, The Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, California
Stellar Echo Imaging of Exoplanets, Chris Mann, Nanohmics, Inc., Austin, Texas
Automaton Rover for Extreme Environments, Jonathan Sauder, JPL
Optical Mining of Asteroids, Moons, and Planets to Enable Sustainable Human Exploration and Space Industrialization, Joel Sercel, TransAstra Corp.
Fusion-Enabled Pluto Orbiter and Lander, Stephanie Thomas, Princeton Satellite Systems, Inc., in Plainsboro, New Jersey
 
       All of these Phase II projects are in early stages of development. It is estimated that these projects may require up to ten years to develop into mature technologies.

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         Certain regions on Earth have had an outsized impact on trade in important commodities. For instance, the Middle East has been important because of the amount of oil some in the countries there. Without those huge oil reserves, much less global attention would have been paid to conflicts in that region. Some analysts now believe that some countries and some major corporations involved energy and commodities extraction and trade may turn their attention to the possibilities of the exploitation of space resources.
        The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are working on their own space programs. They are also investing in private space companies that are focused on space commodities. One advantage these countries have is that they are close to the equator which reduces the amount of fuel needed to achieve equatorial orbit. When oil is not longer a vital energy source, if Middle Eastern oil exporters have not developed other sources of revenue such as space exploitation, they will suffer serious economic decline.
         One very important resource for space exploration is water. Aside from the need for any astronauts to have water to drink and the protection from radiation that water affords, water can provide fuel for space exploration and exploitation. Water can be used as a propellant for spacecraft. It can be utilized in ion thrusters as an ionized vapor in the CubeSat Ambipolar Thruster. It can be heated and expelled as steam. Deep Space Industries Inc. is currently working on such a steam engine. And it can be split into hydrogen and oxygen by solar or nuclear power and then recombined to combust and provide thrust for a spacecraft.
        Prospecting spacecraft could be built for a few tens of missions of dollars. It has been estimated that a spacecraft that could harvest minerals from asteroids could be built for around three billion dollars. This sum is equivalent to the cost of developing a major new mine on Earth. Minerals mined from asteroids could be used for manufacturing of things in space that require the absence of gravity or would be used in spacecraft, space stations and/or power stations. Some very valuable minerals such as gold or platinum might be shipped back to Earth.
       Noah Poponak said in an April 4 research note from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts says “Space mining is still a long way from commercial viability, but it has the potential to further ease access to space. Water and platinum group metals that are abundant on asteroids are highly disruptive from a technological and economic standpoint.”
       Tom James, a partner at energy consultant Navitas Resources, expects space companies to begin launching satellites to search for rare gases and valuable metals in asteroids in the next five years. He thinks that mining may begin as soon as eight years from now. It has been estimated that one asteroid might contain over thirty thousand tons of platinum compared to the one hundred and eighty tons of platinum that are mined each year on Earth. One possible impact of asteroid mining would be a major drop in precious metal prices such as platinum which is currently trading futures at almost a thousand dollars an ounce.
Artist’s concept of an asteroid mining operation:

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         The international treaty that governs the exploration and exploitation of space by the members of the United Nations forbids the placing of weapons in Earth orbit or on other astronomical bodies. One of the great fears is that a space faring nation could place nuclear weapons in orbit which would give it an advantage in a possible exchange of nuclear warheads with another country. However, there is a situation in which it might be critical to humanity to have nuclear warheads in orbit around the Earth.
       Asteroids are minor astronomical bodies which are not big enough for gravity to pull into spherical shapes. There are three main types of asteroids. The E-type asteroids are composed of carbon compounds. The M-type asteroids contain metals such as iron and nickel. And the S-type asteroids are stone composed of silicate compounds.
       There are millions of asteroids in the solar system. Many of these orbit between Mars and Jupiter in what is referred to as the Asteroid Belt. There also many asteroids in the inner solar system which cross the orbit of the earth. Once in a while, one of these near-Earth asteroids crashes into the Earth. The bigger the asteroid, the greater the destruction. A big enough asteroid could cause global firestorms, earthquakes, and tsunamis. The amount of water, dirt, and smoke ejected into the atmosphere by such a collision could cause global cooling by blocking sunlight, disrupting the climate for years. Such asteroid impacts have happened many times in the past with devastating results.
        NASA is currently monitoring asteroids that could pose a threat to the Earth. Over 16,000 asteroids that regularly cross the orbit of the earth and may pose a threat in the future have been catalogued by NASA. NASA and its European counterparts are most concerned about asteroids that are 450 feet or larger because the impact of such an asteroid on Earth could destroy a large city. Although smaller asteroids are less of a threat their impact could still be quite serious depending on where they landed.
        One of these smaller asteroids came within 30,000 miles of the earth back in February. Yesterday a large asteroid passed within 1 million miles of the earth which is about four times farther away than the orbit of the moon. This asteroid was about two thousand feet across and could’ve caused serious devastation if it had hit the Earth.
        At this stage of our technological development, it would be difficult for the human race to do anything about an asteroid approaching on a collision course with the Earth. The best current option for deflecting an asteroid is the use of multiple existing nuclear warheads or the creation of special huge nuclear devices for this specific purpose.
       The big issue with such a mission is how much time we would have to prepare. In some cases, we are able to identify and chart asteroids that are headed our way years ahead of a possible collision. In other cases, we might only have hours warning of an impending collision and too little time to prepare a response. There are estimates that it would take at least five years time to prepare a mission to destroy or divert a major asteroid with today’s technology. Another problem is that some asteroids are not single objects but lose conglomerations of many smaller objects. If an explosion was not sufficient to push all the smaller objects away from the Earth, it might just be a case of trading one single large impact for many smaller impacts.
        The NASA Planetary Defense Office and other organizations such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency have held simulations of asteroid strikes. If a major asteroid was found to be headed towards the Earth and an impact was inevitable, the NASA PDO, FEMA and other and other federal, state and local agencies would spring into action to prepare for the impact and to pick up the pieces afterward.
        An additional danger of an unexpected impact of a major asteroid in a country armed with nuclear weapons is that such an impact might be mistaken for a nuclear attack and trigger a nuclear war with a nuclear-armed enemy.
       It is ironic to consider that a device that has threatened the very existence of the human race for decades might ultimately be the Savior of human civilization.
Artist’s concept of a rocket sent to destroy an approaching asteroid:

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       Currently, the main habitat space in Earth orbit is the International Space Station. Its future is in doubt with the U.S. only allocating funds until 2024. Many of the nations and private companies involved in space exploration and exploitation support the continued presence of human beings in orbital habitats.
       NASA’s NextSTEP program has just selected six private companies to receive NASA funds for the development of ground prototypes for human habitation in space. “All of these habitat ideas contain a pressurized volume plus an array of complex systems such as docking capability, environmental control and life support systems, logistics management, radiation mitigation and monitoring, fire safety technologies, and crew health capabilities.”
        Jason Crusan, director of NASA’s Advanced Exploration Systems, explains that “NASA is on an ambitious expansion of human spaceflight, including the Journey to Mars, and we’re utilizing the innovation, skill and knowledge of both the government and private sectors. The next human exploration capabilities needed beyond the Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule are deep space, long duration habitation and in-space propulsion. We are now adding focus and specifics on the deep space habitats where humans will live and work independently for months or years at a time, without cargo supply deliveries from Earth.”
       Bigelow Aerospace LLC of North Las Vegas, Nevada developed the inflatable Bigelow Expandable Activity Module habitat that is currently being tested at the International Space Station. They are going to use their technology to create a one thousand foot expandable habitat prototype called the Expandable Bigelow Advanced Station Enhancement.
       Boeing of Houston, Texas will utilize the technology that they have developed in the construction and maintenance on the ISS to develop their prototype habitat. “This ground demonstrator will test and validate interface standards, systems functionality and critical exploration technologies.”
       Lockheed Martin of Denver, Colorado will use refurbished logistic modules developed for delivery of supplies to the ISS to develop its habitat prototype. “Virtual prototyping to validate the habitat module’s form, fit and function” will be employed.
       Orbital ATK of Dulles, Virginia developed the Cygnus spacecraft as the basis for a cislunar habitat. They will be building off of this prior work to create their prototype for NASA. “They will mature the Cygnus-derived habitat design for long-term operation in deep space and establish a proposed roadmap that leads to Mars exploration.”
       Sierra Nevada Corporation Space System Divisions is working on adapting its Dream Chaser cargo module for the deployment of a habitat. “After launch from the Dream Chaser spacecraft, the SNC NextSTEP-2 module will be combined with a large inflatable fabric environment module, ECLSS system, and propulsion system. The design and prototype will confirm the proof-of-concept and ensure critical subsystems seamlessly integrate together.”
        NanoRacks of Webster, Texas is working with Space Systems Loral and the United Launch Alliance on their habitat prototype. They are going to study the possibility of using a propellant tank stage from an existing launch vehicle to create a habitat. “The feasibility study will provide insight into this innovative and low-cost approach that can be used for any rocket system, including SLS.”
       NASA says that “The activities of these NextSTEP awards will inform the acquisition and deployment approach for the next phase of flight systems for deep space including important aspects such as standards and interfaces, module configurations, and options for deployment utilizing SLS and Orion and commercial vehicles.”

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       I have been blogging a lot lately establishing a manned base on the Moon. NASA budgets are being discussed and there is an argument about whether or not to focus on exploration of Mars or exploration of the Moon. While an old Apollo-style mission to the Moon would cost far more than the current NASA budget would allow, there are private space companies that are eager to participate in a return to the Moon. Their involvement would lower the price of such an enterprise into a range that would be feasible under current budget restraints.
       Blue Origin is the private space company established by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. At the 33rd Space Symposium on April 5, Rob Myerson, the president of Blue Origin, spoke about his company’s interest in exploration of the Moon. They have developed designs for what they call Blue Moon, a lunar lander system. Myerson said that Blue Origin would be willing to form a partnership with NASA and invest in the development of Blue Moon. Blue Moon would be available to make regular deliveries of resources and supplies to a NASA lunar base.
        Myerson explained that Blue Moon can “cost effectively soft-land large amounts of mass onto the lunar surface. Any credible first lunar settlement is going to require such a capability.” He went on to say that the lander would be part of a “space transfer and lunar lander architecture, leveraging Blue and NASA technologies  “Blue Moon directly leverages our New Shepard proven vertical takeoff and vertical landing technology, combined with our extensive liquid propulsion capabilities to reduce development time and risk. The more NASA flies SLS, the more they will need commercial logistics delivery services. New Glenn and Blue Origin and Blue Moon compliment SLS and Orion, enabling NASA’s return to the moon, and this time to stay.”
       Current plans for the Blue Moon are optimized for launch on NASA’s Space Launch System. However, other launch vehicles such as the United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 and New Glenn rocket being developed by Blue Origin would also be able to carry the Blue Moon lander system.
        NASA currently has plans to develop the Deep Space Gateway in cislunar space between the Earth and the Moon to facilitate the launch of a mission to Mars. However, such a facility could also be used by companies and countries that are interested in setting up manned lunar bases. On April 4 at the symposium, NASA Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot “The goal is to see what we can prove out in the area around the moon and work with our international partners to see what we can do on the surface of the moon.” Private space companies would also be welcome to participate, he said.
       Myerson said “The lunar surface offers valuable resources with valuable science return and can serve as a location to demonstrate key technologies and serve as an appropriate location for that long-term permanent settlement. We also believe the moon is in sequence for longer term exploration of the solar system, including Mars. These are the first steps we’re working on to enable our vision of millions of people living and working in space.”

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       The International Space Station is a habitable man-made satellite in a low orbit above the Earth. It is the largest man-made body in orbit and can be seen with the naked eye. It is made of pressurized modules, external trusses, solar arrays and other components. The first components were launched in 1998 aboard Russian Proton and Soyuz rockets and United States Space Shuttles.
        The orbit of the ISS varies from two hundred to two hundred and seventy miles above the Earth. Its orbit is periodically raised by the engines of the Zvezda module or a docked spacecraft. The ISS travels around the Earth about fifteen times a day.
        The ISS “serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which crew members conduct experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology, and other fields.” Components for spacecraft and equipment are being tested there for flights to the Moon and Mars.
        People have been living aboard the ISS continuously for sixteen and a half years. It holds the record for the most inhabited days of any space station. It has been visited by crews from seventeen different nations. Russian, U.S., and Japanese spacecraft have been used to ferry crew and supplies to the ISS.
       Back in 2014, the U.S. Congress decided that they would set a deadline of 2014 to decide whether or not they would keep voting to fund the ISS. Currently, the funds allocated for the ISS consume about half of the money that Congress provides to NASA for human space exploration.
       The new U.S. president has expressed interest in sending manned expeditions to Mars and/or an asteroid. Without substantial increases in its budget, NASA cannot accomplish those mission while several billion dollars each year is being provided to maintain the ISS.
       The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology is the committee in Congress that draws up the budget for NASA. That committee has been periodically holding hearings about what to do with the ISS. It could be sold, it could be maintained, or it could be allowed to crash into the Pacific.
        Some supporters of NASA believe that the budget should be dedicated to exploration like missions to Mars and Asteroids. For those people, maintaining the ISS is a low priority. On the other hand, the ISS is an excellent platform for research on space technology as mentioned above. A great deal of important research and development for exploratory missions can be carried out on the ISS. The microgravity environment of the ISS which is exposed to a great deal of ambient radiation has already been very useful in learning about the effects of the harsh environment of space on equipment, plants, animals and human beings.
        The ISS was only completed a few years ago when the final modules were shipped up and attached. It still has many potential years of use as a research and development platform. It could also be privatized and serve as a platform for space manufacture or even a luxury hotel in space.
         Congress still has seven years to make a decision about the fate of the ISS. The U.S. Congress should move aggressively to collect pertinent information and testimony from experts and come to a final decision about the ISS well before the 2024 deadline arrives.
International Space Station:

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       On March 2, 2017, China carried out the first launch of a new rocket called the Kaituozhe-2 from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The JSLC was established in 1958 and was China’s first launch complex. It is located in the Gobi Desert and is about one thousand miles from Beijing. It hosts two big launch complexes for Long March 2 and Long March 4 rockets as well as ancillary launch complexes for solid fuel rockets such as the KT-2.
       The KT-2 rocket carried a TK-1 satellite to Earth orbit. The TK-1 or the New Technology Experimental Satellite will be used for remote sensing. It is a prototype for a family of satellites being developed by China Aerospace Science & Industry Corporation which also developed the KT-2 rocket. The TK family of satellites can incorporate visible, infrared and microwave radiation detectors.
       U.S. space surveillance verified two objects in Earth orbit as a result of this launch. One object was the TK-1 satellite and the other object was the upper stage of the launch vehicle which will eventually fall back into the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up.
       In the past two years, China has introduced three new satellites in the heavy-lifter Long March series which is the heart of the Chinese space program. They have also introduced two new solid fuel rockets that can be used to economically launch small satellites into orbit. Unlike the introduction of many previous new Chinese rockets, the launch of the Kaituozhe-2 was not accompanied by much publicity or information.
      The Kaituozhe family of rockets began development in 2000 based on the Dong Feng-31 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. The KT-1 was a small all solid fuel four stage rocket that was designed to carry up to two hundred and twenty pounds worth of payload into a low polar Earth orbit. Although early test launches failed, the KT-1 program did help develop critical components for such small solid fuel rockets.
      The KT-2 is an advanced version of the KT-1. It has three stages and can carry a seven-hundred and seventy pound payload into Low Earth Orbit. It can also launch a five hundred and fifty-pound satellite into an orbit around the Sun. The Chinese government announced that the KT-2 was intended for commercial use. However, they also said that it could be launched from a mobile launcher which suggests possible military use.
      China currently has two operational solid fuel launch vehicles. The Long March-11 flew missions in 2015 and 2016. The LM-11 is capable of carrying a seven hundred and seventy pound payload into orbit around the Sun. The  Kuaizhou-1/1A is a “quick response launch vehicle” that was introduced earlier this year.
      Another rocket that is slated for introduction this year is the Kuaizhou-11. This rocket is said to be capable of placing a twenty-two hundred pound payload into orbit around the Sun. The Chinese hope that the Kuaizhou-11 launch vehicles will be able to carry payloads to orbit at a cost of about ten thousand dollars a kilogram which will make them competitive in the global space launch industry.
Kaituozhe-2 launch:

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