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 immediately after the government's announcement that it wants 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 to launch a probe for Mars within the next year", and the fourth probe destined for the Moon will launch by the end of this year.
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
In this regard, Kejian 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 "Heavenly Palace", which will be in orbit in 2022 and will replace the ISS whose retirement is scheduled for 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, given that the sending of a probe similar to the one recently launched by Japan.
In short, with each such announcement, China captures more and more attention on space exploration, attracts investments from outside and increases its own: according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, current Chinese spending is almost 8 and a half billion euros, more than Russia and Japan and second only to the USA.
