The race to the moon becomes nourished and interesting: after ESA, NASA and Amazon (Jeff Bezos illustrated his plan just a few days ago) is the turn of China, which has formalized its human mission projects on the moon, with the construction of a research center on the lunar surface within the next decade.
A solar space station
The announcement by Zhang Kejian, head of the National Space Administration during a special event called "Space Day" comes soon after the government's announcement of wanting to be the first to build a space photovoltaic power plant by 2025. And if this goes through, Kejian will have the support of Vodafone and Nokia to provide full 4G service to the astronauts who come to "colonize" our satellite.
A planet that cannot be redder
Kejian did not limit himself to the Moon: Beijing "has planned the launch of a probe for Mars within the next year", and by the end of this year the fourth probe destined for the Moon will start.
Initially scheduled for the collection of lunar samples to be made in the second half of 2017, the Chang'e-5 mission was delayed after the problems in the launch phase in July 2017 of the powerful Y2 rocket.
Tiangong, the Heavenly Palace
Kejian in this regard specified that the new version of the carrier will make its flight in the first half of 2020 bringing with it the main components of the first Chinese space station, the Tiangong or "Celestial Palace", which will be in orbit in 2022 and will replace the ISS whose retirement is expected in 2024.
The probe on asteroids
It's not over here: China has invited all interested scientists and researchers to apply for new experiments to be carried out on asteroids, as the dispatch of a similar probe to the one recently launched by Japan.
In short, with each announcement of this kind, China captures more and more attention on space exploration, attracts investments from the outside and increases its own: according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the current spending of the Chinese is almost 8 and a half billion euros, more than Russia and Japan and second only to the USA.
