China's Space Program News Thread

[Quickie]

No, that article does not have any further detail on what the US proposal was.

China said it was accepting proposals internationally for the space station last year. In total 23 proposal were submitted by 17 countries, China ended up accepting 9 of them.

I think the Chinese space agency has to take into account how genuine is the U.S. in their intention to join in the effort.

The U.S. proposal needs to be of the type that is separate from the overall project so that it is not critical to the whole project if there are delays on their part, intentional or not. I don't think the Chinese space agency would accept the proposal if it involves building a part of the station that would be critical to the success of the project, for example.

One can't blame them for being so cautious if one takes into account the political climate between the 2 countries, and how China has been excluded from the International Space Station by the U.S.

 

[by78]

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View attachment 64954

Does anyone have any details about this?

Highly implausible. The U.S. government and its agencies – NASA included – are restricted by law (Wolf Amendment) from cooperating with China on space endeavors. If any entity from the U.S. had applied for a ride on the Chinese space station, it would have been a non-governmental entity, such as an academic institution or a private research lab. In other words, official request from the United States for a mission on Tiangong is all but impossible at this point.

P.S. That Weibo user is highly unreliable, a firebrand focused on political drama.

 

[Gloire_bb]

The U.S. government and its agencies – NASA included – are restricted by law (Wolf Amendment) from cooperating with China on space endeavors.

To be precise, it isn't completely(directly) prohibited, thus sometimes engagement does actually happen.

Wolf amendment does a wonderful job bringing it to the freezing point, though.

 

[taxiya]

Interview of Zhou Jianping, chief designer of China's manned space program June 2019 after the first round selection of experiments aboard Tiangong station.

Summary of his words,

1. US did "deny" China's participation of ISS. note the quotation mark
2. China does not deny experiment proposals from US entities.
3. Zhou as the head of the program personally prefer to give chances to developing countries.
4. The US proposals were not selected because they did not met the criteria.

Regarding the "US did (not) rejected China in ISS". There are people saying it did not happen, siting another interview of Tiangong 2's designer who said China did not apply so no reject.

In this 2019 interview, CCTV anchor specifically asked the "US rejection", to which Zhou said "we know that US prohibit cooperation with China".

Here is my thought. The reality is that China did not apply because China is 200% (through Russia) sure the answer would be a no. On the surface it was no ask therefor no reject, in reality it was no accept therefor no ask. In highly political matters (space is one of them), diplomat works reversely in unspoken manner.

The last question is "is China rejecting US entities?". The answer is yes and no. On the surface, China does not exclude US, in reality China let friendly countries to fill the space before give US a corner regardless NASA or not. US knows that, so even if NASA is allowed to ask, it won't, therefor no reject. Same rule of game, same treatment unspoken.

Now this is the 2nd round of selections, there will be a 3rd round (probably the last), if there is not a single application from a US entity selected eventually, then it would be pretty clear what China does. Let's revisit this subject in a year.

 

[taxiya]

The US law forbidding cooperation with China would be preventive measure to avoid the awkwardness of NASA being rejected covertly (a surprising long term thinking from a US administration) after ISS is retired. It will be retired for sure considering major modules (the Russian sector) are out of their designed serving lives for more than 5 years and is cracking and leaking. Replacing them will be very expansive and Russia may or may not want to do it (a bargain chip in Russian hand). Not replacing means ISS is dead because the Russian module is where the Soyuz spacecraft docks and performs orbital keeping burn that put high stress to the Russian module.

Without the law, NASA would be facing question of not hitchhiking on Tiangong after ISS when almost everybody else does. So we can see how important the lunar gateway project is to NASA even though there are strong objections to lunar gateway from within the US astronautical society.

 

[gelgoog]

They can't cooperate on the ISS because of ITAR.
Remember they blocked Chinese access to space related technologies after Space Systems Loral tried to launch a satellite on a Chinese rocket launcher in Clinton's time?

 

[anzha]

They can't cooperate on the ISS because of ITAR.
Remember they blocked Chinese access to space related technologies after Space Systems Loral tried to launch a satellite on a Chinese rocket launcher in Clinton's time?

Intelsat 708.

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[siegecrossbow]

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[by78]

A third course adjustment has been successfully completed for the Mars mission. I think there's two more to go.

 

[by78]

A nice panorama of a crater taken by the lunar rover.