At the 27th congress of the Association of Space Explorers (ASE) held in Beijing, China, in recent days, one of the topics was the space station that China wants to build in the coming years. The Chinese representatives have stated that their government is interested in cooperating with other nations in scientific research as well as hosting foreign astronauts in their space station.
Updated plans for the construction of the Chinese space station were explained in November 2013 at the conference of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research by Gu Yidong, the president of China Society of Space Research. The first module is scheduled to be launched into orbit in 2018 and the station is scheduled to be completed in 2022.
The ASE congress allowed to understand more about China’s plans to cooperate with other nations. China has already worked with Russia at technological exchanges and in some Chinese space missions they carried out scientific experiments designed along with other nations. Now, however, came an opening to the possibility of hosting foreign astronauts.
Yang Liwei, the first Chinese astronaut who traveled into space in 2003, stated that China is willing to have a deeper collaboration with other nations. China could train astronauts for other nations and provide space transportation for the crews.
One of the possibilities left open by Yang Liwei is that a foreign spacecraft could dock to the Chinese space station. China uses a docking interface different from other nations but designed adapters that can be applied to the Chinese space modules to solve this problem.
At the ASE congress there were representatives of many nations, including several astronauts and cosmonauts. In Beijing, they could hear the statements of Chinese officials about the possibility of international collaboration. All this is certainly positive, but it will still be a Chinese space station so they will be the owners and decide everything.
One of the problems is the growing rivalry between the USA and China, which so far has prevented any cooperation between the two nations in space programs. China seems to want to offer its space station as an alternative to the International Space Station. This could be a new stimulus for the Americans in the development of their space program.
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