Beijing - With a rocket on the launch pad ready to send its first space laboratory into orbit, China has entered a crucial stage in its plans to assemble a permanent space station within the next decade.
While the United States has canned its space shuttle programme and the future of the International Space Station (ISS) is uncertain after the Soyuz accident, China is gearing up to make another big leap.
The Tiangong-1, or Palace of Heaven, is an orbital module that will serve as a rudimentary space laboratory and allow China to master the docking manoeuvres vital to the success of its plans for the space station.
Also awaiting launch at the Jiuquan space centre in Gansu province is the Shenzhou-8, or Magic Ship, space capsule that will follow Tiangong-1 into orbit and perform the first docking manoeuvre.
Tiangong-1 is expected to be launched later this month after a delay following unexpected problems with China's family of Long March carrier rockets.
A Long March-2C failed to place a satellite into its planned orbit on August 18, a rare setback for Chinese engineers but an error that received less international attention than Russia's space problems.
The launcher's second stage altitude control system was identified as the cause of the problem, and the launch of the 8-ton Tiangong-1 was delayed pending new safety checks, despite the fact that it will be launched on a more advanced rocket.
September 27 is the new target launch date, according to a source in the aerospace programme in Beijing who requested anonymity. No official date has been announced.
“They have traced the problem and will recover,” said Australian space travel expert Morris Jones. “It led to a short postponement, but I see no reason for further delays.”
Joan Johnson-Freese, a specialist on China's space programme at the US Naval War College, also expects a launch by the end of September.
Due to their much larger weight of 20 tons each, the modules that will form the permanent space station will be transported into space with still untested heavy-duty rockets of a new type, Long March-5. So the recent malfunction should not hold up the plans for the overall programme, Johnson-Freese said.
Once Tiangong-1 enters its predefined orbit, the unmanned Shenzou-8 will follow it a few weeks later to test remote-controlled docking manoeuvres.
Astronauts are scheduled to visit the Palace of Heaven twice next year on the Shenzhou-9 and Shenzhou-10 missions, and to set up a mini-space station comprised of linked capsules.
China's experimental spacelab cannot measure up to the 1973 US Skylab or to Russia's Mir of 1986 in terms of size, but it does serve a purpose as a first step.
A full space station designed to be permanently occupied is scheduled to be operational by around 2020. A main cabin 18 metres long and 4.2 metres in diameter will be attached to two 14.4-metre-long work modules.
At 60 to 70 tons, this space station is still small in comparison with the ISS, which weighs in at 450 tons.
But as the joint project between Russia and the US will be have been closed down by 2020, at the latest, China will be the only nation with a manned outpost in space.
That would be a great success for the young spacefaring nation, which first sent an astronaut into space in 2003, and technologically remains on a level the US reached in the 1960s.
“Roughly speaking, the Chinese programme now is at the stage where the US was in the Gemini years,” Johnson-Freese said in a reference to the 1960s Nasa spaceflight programme.
“But a space station is part of the infrastructure China is planning to build in space - deliberately different from the Apollo approach,” she added.
The station is part of an ambitious space programme that will build a satellite network for a navigation system and is already preparing for an unmanned lunar landing.
The project is under the mandate of the People's Liberation Army, and pursues military purposes even if peaceful intentions are always stressed. Chinese generals know how important satellite communication is for warfare.
“Because a high percentage of space technology is of dual use, there will be indirect benefits for the Chinese army, much like the Apollo technology benefited the US military,” Johnson-Freese said.
But cooperation from the United States, Russia and Europe with the Chinese in their new international space station is not on the horizon.
“That will not happen, for political and technical reasons,” Jones said. “The US rejects it, and it has genuine strategic reasons for doing so.” - Sapa-dpa