It's no secret that China is becoming one of the big players in the competition for space technology. Most recently, China wants to build a spacecraft that can reach kilometers in length.
Speaking of China's work in the space world, in the past twenty years, China's national space agency CNSA has achieved a number of their historic first achievements.
These achievements include sending astronauts into space, deploying three space stations as part of the Tiangong program, developing heavy launch vehicles such as the Long March 5, and sending robotic explorers to the far side of the Moon and Mars.
Looking ahead to the next decade, China plans to take bolder steps in developing its space program. Among the many proposals that state leaders are considering for its latest five-year plan, one is to build an ultra-large spacecraft that spans several kilometers.
When China has this spacecraft in low earth orbit (LEO) it will be a change in space technology competition for China. These aircraft enable long-range missions and the utilization of the country's space resources.
Quoted from Universe Today, Thursday (2/9/2021) this plan comes at a time when China has achieved a number of achievements in the field of space. Earlier this year, China became the second country in the world to successfully land a rover on the surface of Mars, and the first to land a mission consisting of an orbiter, lander and rover. Two years ago, China became the first country to land a robotic mission on the far side of the Moon (the Chang'e-4 lander and rover).
This ambitious proposal was one of ten put forward by The National Natural Science Foundation of China at a meeting in Beijing earlier this month. Each project has been awarded USD 2.3 million (approximately Rp 32 billion) in funding for further research and development.
One of the main goals of the project is to find a way to keep the mass of the spacecraft low while ensuring they are structurally sound enough to launch into orbit.
Spaceship elements will be built on Earth, then individually launched into orbit to be assembled in space. The same outline determines how this spacecraft will become the main strategic aerospace equipment for the future use of space resources and exploration of the mysteries of the universe.
Looking at the specifications described in the proposal document, there is a lot of skepticism about this proposal. For starters, it takes a number of launches to deploy all the necessary elements into space. In comparison, the International Space Station (ISS) is the largest man-made structure ever assembled in Earth orbit. However, it took dozens of launches and years to get all the components assembled and at a considerable cost to all involved.