Yu Menglun, also academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said in a recent interview that China has sought to develop non-toxic, low-cost, highly reliable, adaptable and safe carrier rockets in its research of the new generation products.

Long March-5 rocket will be using non-toxic and pollution-free propellant. It has a maximum low Earth-orbit payload capacity of 25 tonnes and geosynchronous orbit payload capacity of 14 tonnes.

The Long March-6, which is designed to be a high-speed response launch vehicle, has a minimum of 1 tonne of sun-synchronous orbit payload, according to the scientist.

The Long March-7 has a maximum low Earth-orbit payload capacity of 13.5 tonnes and 5.5 tonnes of sun-synchronous orbit payload, he said.

The Long March rockets currently fall into four categories, namely the Long March-1, Long March-2, Long March-3 and Long March-4.

China started development of modern carrier rockets in 1956, and Long March rockets have become the main carriers for China's satellite launching.

The Long March rocket family has already made more than 150 flights. The Shenzhou manned spaceships and China's lunar orbiters were all launched on the Long March rockets.

So far, China has three launch centers, located in Jiuquan, Taiyuan and Xichang.

Currently, a fourth launch center is being built in Wenchang in the island province of Hainan. The Wenchang launch center is expected to be put into use within two or three years, according to Yu.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 08:59:08 AEST Beijing (UPI) Feb 6, 2012 - China says it will debut a new generation of Long March launch rockets within the next five years to join its rocket fleet of satellite launchers.

Long March-5, -6 and -7 will be non-toxic, low-cost, highly reliable, adaptable and safe carrier rockets, Yu Menglun of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said in an interview with China's state-run news agency Xinhua.

The Long March-5 rocket will use non-toxic and pollution-free propellant to put up to 25 tons of payload into low Earth-orbit or 14 tons into geosynchronous orbit, Yu said.

The Long March-6, a high-speed launch vehicle, can put 1 ton into a sun-synchronous orbit while the Long March-7 has a maximum low Earth-orbit payload capacity of 13.5 tons and 5.5 tons of sun-synchronous orbit payload, he said.

The new Long March models will be the latest in a line of launch vehicles dating back to 1956 when China first started the development of modern carrier rockers, Xinhua said.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 08:59:08 AEST Beijing (XNA) Jan 25, 2012 - The annual output value of China's satellite navigation industry is estimated to reach more than 225 billion yuan (35.64 billion U.S. dollars) in 2015, according to a latest research report on the country's geographic information sector.

Compiled by a think-tank under the National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation, the report predicted the industry would become the country's third new IT economic growth point, after mobile communication and Internet.

More than 5,000 Chinese firms and organizations were now involved in the application and services of satellite navigation and the industry generated more than 50 billion yuan of output value in 2010, according to the report, published by the Social Sciences Academic Press.

China aims to increase the total number of satellite navigation terminals used by the public across the country to 340 million by 2015.

China began to build its Beidou Navigation Satellite System in 2000 with a goal of breaking its dependence on the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) and creating its own global positioning system by 2020.

The homegrown Beidou system began providing initial positioning, navigation and timing operational services to China and its surrounding areas from late last month.

Six more satellites will be launched in 2012 to further expand its service area to cover most parts of the Asia-Pacific region, according to the management office of the China Satellite Navigation System.

Source: Xinhua News Agency

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 08:59:08 AEST Beijing (XNA) Jan 20, 2012 - China plans to launch 21 rockets and 30 satellites this year, exceeding its record of 19 rockets and 22 satellites launched in 2010, the main contractor for the country's space program told Xinhua on Wednesday.

The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC) said that the company will strive to ensure the success of all launch missions, including the launch of the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft, which will achieve space rendezvous and docking missions with the orbiting Tiangong-1 vehicle.

According to the company's plan for 2011-2015, it will complete 100 launch missions and send 100 satellites into space in the five-year period.

The Chinese government has made the space industry an important part of the nation's overall development strategy and adhered to the exploration and utilization of outer space for peaceful purposes, said a white paper on China's space industry released last month.

Source: Xinhua News Agency

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 08:59:08 AEST Beijing (RIA Novosti) Jan 19, 2012 - China is planning to launch 21 carrier rockets with 30 satellites in 2012, the China Aerospace and Technology Corporation (CASC) said on Wednesday.

The country's ambitious space program will see a steady increase in the number of space launches in the near future. Last year, China launched 20 rockets with 25 satellites to become the world's second country after Russia in terms of the amount of space launches.

As part of the 2012 schedule, China will launch six more geostationary satellites of the Beidou-2 (Compass) system to expand its own global positioning network to 16 satellites as an alternative to U.S. GPS and Russian Glonass.

Another key event on the Chinese space industry calendar is the launch of Shenzhou-9 and Shenzhou-10 spacecraft to rendezvous and dock with the currently orbiting Tiangong-1 vessel as part of an ambitious project to start building a 60-ton space station by about 2020.

Source: RIA Novosti

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 08:59:08 AEST Sydney, Australia (SPX) Jan 19, 2012 - The first crew to fly to a Chinese space laboratory could lift off within three months. The launch of the Shenzhou 9 mission to the Tiangong 1 module could take place at the end of March or early April. Preparations for the flight are well underway, but for the moment, most aspects of Shenzhou 9 remain behind a curtain of secrecy.

There have been some vague media statements about the mission this year. So far, the only new thing we have learned is that the mission will last around 10 days. This is longer than any previous crewed Shenzhou flight.

The mission duration fits in fairly well with predictions by most analysts, who expected a flight of around two weeks. But it's still shorter than the Shenzhou 8 mission, which served as an uncrewed rehearsal for Shenzhou 9. Shenzhou 8 flew to a robotic docking with Tiangong 1 in November last year, and performed two rendezvous and docking tests.

The mission lasted around 17 days. At the time of the mission, this author suggested that Shenzhou 9 would remain aloft for the same time period. We now know that the next mission is shorter by roughly one week! The reduced mission for Shenzhou 9 will probably help to conserve logistics aboard the spacecraft, such as food, water and oxygen.

This revelation of a shorter mission could supply some more insight into the crew. Right now, there has been no official confirmation of the crew size. Some theories suggest there will be two astronauts aboard Shenzhou 9, while others suggest three aboard. This author is now gravitating further towards the three-astronaut plan. The shorter mission would allow a larger crew to fly without straining the logistics.

We also don't know the identities of the crew. The Chinese have probably nominated a "prime" and back-up crew by now, although details haven't been published. It seems likely that all the crew will be members of China's original 1998 class of astronaut trainees, who are getting closer to their use- by dates for age and physical fitness.

We can probably rule out Yang Liwei, China's first astronaut, and Zhai Zhigang, China's first spacewalker, as prime flight candidates. These men are probably considered too valuable to risk on any further space missions. The next crew will probably feature at least two previously unflown "rookie" astronauts, and it's also possible that the entire crew will be "rookies".

Some statements have hinted that the astronauts won't necessarily enter the Tiangong module, but will merely dock with it. This is possible, but unlikely. Such comments probably reflect contingency plans, which will be enacted only in the event of problems. If everything goes normally, the astronauts will enter the laboratory and live aboard it.

We don't know exactly what the astronauts will do on board Tiangong, but we will certainly get to see a lot of it. The interior of the lab has a television camera, and Chinese television will probably devote a lot of time to the mission.

Despite its name, the Tiangong 1 "space laboratory" is more like a small habitation module, and does not carry a lot of laboratory equipment. Nevertheless, scientific work will be carried out. Much of it will probably be physiological studies of the astronauts themselves.

China will need to make some more statements on the mission fairly soon. They should feel confident about discussing the mission in greater detail, as the Shenzhou and Tiangong programs both seem very healthy. The Shenzhou 8 mission was highly successful, and suggests that Shenzhou 9 will also fly well. We await the mission eagerly.

Dr Morris Jones is an Australian spaceflight analyst and author. Email morrisjonesNOSPAMhotmail.com Replace NOSPAM with @ to send email. Dr Jones will answer media inquiries.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 08:59:08 AEST Taiyuan, China (XNA) Jan 10, 2012 - China successfully launched the Ziyuan III satellite Monday from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern Shanxi province.

The satellite was launched at 11:17 a.m. Monday aboard a Long March 4B rocket.

The rocket also carried a satellite from Luxemburg, according to the launch center.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 08:59:08 AEST Sydney, Australia (SPX) Jan 07, 2012 - In early January, the mass media went viral over a controversial story in the journal "Spaceflight", published by the British Interplanetary Society. To cut a long story short, "Spaceflight" claimed that the US Air Force's X-37B robot spaceplane was spying on China's Tiangong 1 space laboratory. Wow! Feel the excitement! It's no wonder that the story travelled so far, so quickly.

Unfortunately, it's just not true. The story provoked a sceptical response from this writer, who has reported on both Tiangong and X-37B over their lifetimes in space. It also unleashed a torrent of criticism from spaceflight boffins around the world.

The claim is a real howler. Although there has been a suitable response from inside the spaceflight community, I feel the need to add to the rebuttals of this story. It's not just a big mistake. It's a provocative and potentially damaging claim.

Why is this story wrong? For a start, there's the orbital paths of both vehicles. Basically, they don't approach each other in a way that would permit X-37B to take a proper look at Tiangong. Claims that their orbits matched closely enough to do this were made by "Spaceflight". It's just not so.

X-37B is certainly not spying on Tiangong. But can it really spy on anything at all? The X-37B is a small robotic spacecraft, roughly the size of a car. It looks like a miniature space shuttle, with wings, tailfins and a nose. It also has a small cargo bay, like its famous big brother. The first X-37B mission was launched in 2010 and stayed aloft for more than 270 days.

The second flight of the X-37B has been in orbit since March of this year, on a semi-secret mission, and shows no sign of returning to Earth yet. As this author has documented in his previous coverage of the X-37B program, the USAF is testing new technologies that have been used to build the vehicle. That's no secret.

There's also something inside the cargo bay, but details on what lies under the payload doors (which have since been opened in space) is still classified. We know that there's a solar panel that unfurls on a boom.

But there's room for other things. Some artwork of the X-37B depicts a small telescope being pointed outward, which further lends support to the "spying in space" theory.

But is this true? We don't really know. This author has previously suggested that other, less sexy items, are contained in the cargo bay. The X-37B is probably testing materials, mechanical parts, batteries and other small items to see how they withstand exposure to space.

They will be returned to Earth for examination by engineers. These parts are probably candidate components for US national security satellites, which have experienced some major breakdowns in recent years.

The secrecy of the mission has generated a lot of conspiracy theories, such as the aforementioned spy missions, or suggestions that the X-37B is a space weapon. Most unlikely!

So the X-37B is probably not really spying on anything. It's an engineering test. Conspiracy theorists should relax.

But this leads to another concept. Is the USA really spying on Tiangong 1? Yes, but not with the X-37B.

America operates an impressive group of ground-based cameras that can photograph satellites in orbit. These have almost certainly been used to observe Tiangong 1, along with just about everything else in low Earth orbit.

It's also possible that a large Keyhole-class spy satellite has been used to photograph Tiangong from elsewhere in space. Telemetry from Tiangong would have been intercepted by eavesdropping antennas on the ground and from electronic intelligence gathering satellites in higher orbits.

It should be noted that the USA has also experimented extensively with small, stealthy satellites that can be used to approach and spy on other satellites. A real spy mission would probably use this type of spacecraft, not a high-profile experimental craft that's being watched by legions of space boffins around the world.

The X-37B program has generated controversy throughout its mission. It's not surprising that the controversy is continuing. But the media needs a solid reality check on this subject.

Dr Morris Jones is an Australian space analyst and writer. Email morrisjonesNOSPAMhotmail.com. Replace NOSPAM with @ to send email. Dr Jones will answer media inquiries.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 08:59:08 AEST Beijing (AFP) Jan 5, 2012 - As China pushes to become a global space power, experts say its ambitions go well beyond a symbolic moon landing, to satellite observation and a global positioning system to rival that of the United States.

The Asian powerhouse laid out its five-year plan for space exploration last week, outlining ambitious plans at a time when the United States -- historically at the forefront of the field -- has grounded its space shuttle fleet.

Isabelle Sourbes-Verger, a space expert at France's National Centre for Scientific Research, said it was widely acknowledged that "what matters to China is the role it will play as a major power."

China marked a key success in November last year when it completed its first docking in orbit high above Earth, a crucial step towards fulfilling its ambition to set up a manned space station by 2020.

In 2003, it became the third country in the world to send humans into space after Russia and America, and it is now looking into sending astronauts to the moon, although nothing has been set in stone.

The white paper issued last Thursday -- the third to have been published since 2000 -- said China "will conduct studies on the preliminary plan for a human lunar landing."

Australia-based expert Morris Jones said the logo of the China Lunar Exploration Program, which operates robotic missions to the Moon, had a human footprint at its centre, providing a "useful clue about their long-term plans."

But Beijing is not content with playing catch-up on manned flights, and is also looking to reap economic and scientific benefits from space.

By 2016, China will "increase the use of satellites to contribute to the development of strategic industries and satisfy the needs of the economy" in telecommunications, Earth observation or global positioning systems, the white paper said.

China last year launched its version of the US Global Positioning System (GPS), the Beidou satellite navigation system. Further satellites will enable the new system to cover Asia this year, and the whole world by 2020.

Sourbes-Verger said China's ambitions in Earth observation -- an expertise that has both civilian and military applications -- were well ahead of anything currently planned by Europe.

The white paper outlined ambitions for "24-hour continuous, high-resolution surveillance of the Earth," she said, adding that the plan, if realised, would put China almost on a level with the United States in this field.

China has long maintained the rapid development of its space capabilities is peaceful in nature, and the white paper reiterated this, saying Beijing "opposes weaponisation or any arms race in outer space."

But concerns remain over China's intentions. In 2009, air force commander General Xu Qiliang caused a stir when he said armed forces should prepare for the "inevitable" militarisation of outer space -- a claim hastily disavowed by President Hu Jintao.

Jones noted that China had tested anti-satellite weapons by blowing up one of its own in 2007. "No nation that has a respectable major space programme has an entirely peaceful programme," he said.

"The world over, space technologies are used for military communications and to deploy spy satellites. China's no different."

The white paper also outlined plans to equip China's next-generation rockets with the ability to carry heavier cargoes.

The Long March-5 rocket being developed will be able to place 25-tonne payloads into near-Earth orbit -- more than the 20 tonnes Europe's Ariane 5 rocket can carry.

But the payload is still a lot lighter than what Saturn V -- a rocket used by the United States from 1967 to 1973 that transported the Apollo missions to the moon -- was able to carry.

"Now we need vehicles with a greater capability to send more payloads into space," Hu Haifeng, designer at the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation -- a contractor for the Chinese space programme -- was quoted as saying by the official Global Times.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 08:59:08 AEST Sydney, Australia (SPX) Jan 07, 2012 - In early January, the mass media went viral over a controversial story in the journal "Spaceflight", published by the British Interplanetary Society. To cut a long story short, "Spaceflight" claimed that the US Air Force's X-37B robot spaceplane was spying on China's Tiangong 1 space laboratory. Wow! Feel the excitement! It's no wonder that the story travelled so far, so quickly.

Unfortunately, it's just not true. The story provoked a sceptical response from this writer, who has reported on both Tiangong and X-37B over their lifetimes in space. It also unleashed a torrent of criticism from spaceflight boffins around the world.

The claim is a real howler. Although there has been a suitable response from inside the spaceflight community, I feel the need to add to the rebuttals of this story. It's not just a big mistake. It's a provocative and potentially damaging claim.

Why is this story wrong? For a start, there's the orbital paths of both vehicles. Basically, they don't approach each other in a way that would permit X-37B to take a proper look at Tiangong. Claims that their orbits matched closely enough to do this were made by "Spaceflight". It's just not so.

X-37B is certainly not spying on Tiangong. But can it really spy on anything at all? The X-37B is a small robotic spacecraft, roughly the size of a car. It looks like a miniature space shuttle, with wings, tailfins and a nose. It also has a small cargo bay, like its famous big brother. The first X-37B mission was launched in 2010 and stayed aloft for more than 270 days.

The second flight of the X-37B has been in orbit since March of this year, on a semi-secret mission, and shows no sign of returning to Earth yet. As this author has documented in his previous coverage of the X-37B program, the USAF is testing new technologies that have been used to build the vehicle. That's no secret.

There's also something inside the cargo bay, but details on what lies under the payload doors (which have since been opened in space) is still classified. We know that there's a solar panel that unfurls on a boom.

But there's room for other things. Some artwork of the X-37B depicts a small telescope being pointed outward, which further lends support to the "spying in space" theory.

But is this true? We don't really know. This author has previously suggested that other, less sexy items, are contained in the cargo bay. The X-37B is probably testing materials, mechanical parts, batteries and other small items to see how they withstand exposure to space.

They will be returned to Earth for examination by engineers. These parts are probably candidate components for US national security satellites, which have experienced some major breakdowns in recent years.

The secrecy of the mission has generated a lot of conspiracy theories, such as the aforementioned spy missions, or suggestions that the X-37B is a space weapon. Most unlikely!

So the X-37B is probably not really spying on anything. It's an engineering test. Conspiracy theorists should relax.

But this leads to another concept. Is the USA really spying on Tiangong 1? Yes, but not with the X-37B.

America operates an impressive group of ground-based cameras that can photograph satellites in orbit. These have almost certainly been used to observe Tiangong 1, along with just about everything else in low Earth orbit.

It's also possible that a large Keyhole-class spy satellite has been used to photograph Tiangong from elsewhere in space. Telemetry from Tiangong would have been intercepted by eavesdropping antennas on the ground and from electronic intelligence gathering satellites in higher orbits.

It should be noted that the USA has also experimented extensively with small, stealthy satellites that can be used to approach and spy on other satellites. A real spy mission would probably use this type of spacecraft, not a high-profile experimental craft that's being watched by legions of space boffins around the world.

The X-37B program has generated controversy throughout its mission. It's not surprising that the controversy is continuing. But the media needs a solid reality check on this subject.

Dr Morris Jones is an Australian space analyst and writer. Email morrisjonesNOSPAMhotmail.com. Replace NOSPAM with @ to send email. Dr Jones will answer media inquiries.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 08:59:08 AEST Subscribe to our daily selection of space, military, environment and energy newsletters responseText http://visitor.constantcontact.com/manage/optin/ea?v=0016gbbKsaiGSpQFojVO8ZoHw%3D%3D