Research Story of the Week

China's Manned Space Program: Trajectory and Motivations

By Stephanie Lieggi and Leigh Aldrich

[See also: Brief Chronology of the Shenzhou Program, October 15, 2003]

Photo Testing of the Shenzhou V spacecraft.
[Src: China Space News]

October 6, 2003

The countdown is ticking toward China's first manned space mission, the Shenzhou 5, which is expected to be launched sometime in October 2003. The Chinese government has alternated between caution in disclosing details of the launch and giddiness in hyping the event. Prestige and national pride are key motivations for the Chinese leadership's push to place a Chinese citizen in space. China's leaders and space officials have emphasized the indigenous nature of the Chinese space program in general, and the Shenzhou ("Divine Vessel") program in particular. However, experts question whether China could have developed the current Shenzhou capsule without foreign assistance, particularly from the Russian Federation. Some question whether placing a Chinese astronaut into space is a sign of Chinese technological prowess, or merely an indicator of China's ability to adapt Russian technology to its own use.

Whether or not the Shenzhou is an indication of Chinese scientific achievement, it is definitely a sign of priorities in the Chinese government. The manned space program is a significant drain on resources in a country still struggling to meet basic living standards for its population. Will the potential returns in terms of technological advances and international prestige ultimately justify the massive investment in the Shenzhou program? Or will the Chinese find that they have built an expensive program with only symbolic value?

Developing Shenzhou: A Little Help From Their Friends
At the start of China's space and missile programs in the 1950s, the Soviet Union gave China significant assistance in the form of training and materials. This assistance, along with a small influx of Western-educated Chinese technicians, formed the basis of China's early successes in both the space and missile programs.[1] Soviet assistance ended as relations soured in the early 1960s, leaving China with significant technical barriers to further progress. China continued to develop its satellite and missile programs, but the quest for a manned space program faltered due to lack of funding and access to advanced technology.

China focused on satellites and satellite launch technologies in the 1970s and 1980s, with a manned space program remaining a distant goal. By the 1990s, cooperation with various nations, including Western European countries, Brazil, and the United States, had assisted the development of Chinese satellite programs, including launch, tracking, maneuvering, and recovery capabilities. The most significant outside assistance, however, came after the fall of the Soviet Union. As Russia (and to a lesser extent Ukraine) sought hard currency to save its crumbling economy, China offered a good market for advanced technology. In 1995, more than 30 years after the Soviet Union stopped technical assistance to China, Beijing signed a deal with Missile Space Corporation Energia (RKK Energia, in Russian), Russia's chief space station contractor, to provide training for Chinese astronauts (a.k.a. yuhangyuans) and technical information about the Soyuz spacecraft's capsule, life support systems, docking systems, and space suits.[2] In a later agreement, Russia agreed to further assist China with the development of docking, flight control and life support systems.[3]

China's current manned space program, named Shenzhou was developed beginning in 1992 under the 921 Project. The 921 Project is part of a three-step program that involves several test flights followed by a manned launch, the development of a manned space station, and completion of a modern space-earth transportation system.[4] The Chinese scientific community has also discussed plans for lunar exploration and missions to Mars.

As pictures of Shenzhou were released, foreign experts noticed that the external design resembled the Soyuz, not surprising considering the transfer of technology from Energia. Both systems include three modules: an aft service propulsion module, a pressurized re-entry module and a forward orbital module. Skeptical scientists and analysts began to question whether the Shenzhou was simply a copy of the Soyuz design. However, detailed analysis of the Shenzhou modules indicates that the Chinese capsule is much more than a replica of the Soyuz and includes significant improvements upon the Russian design. Apart from the desire to have a "Made in China" stamp on the Shenzhou, Chinese engineers and scientists were aware of the deficiencies and safety problems of the earlier Soyuz designs. Improvements on these designs were necessary before the Chinese launched the first Shenzhou.[5]

Comparison of the Shenzhou and Soyuz[6]
Re-Entry Capsule
The Shenzhou's re-entry capsule looks identical to the Soyuz, but there are a number of notable differences including size: the Shenzhou is about 13 percent larger. The larger capsule can hold three or four astronauts, compared to the first Russian and American capsules, which only held one person. The Shenzhou's design is also more aerodynamic than the Russian and American designs. The landing apparatus and technology is based on the Soyuz. According to a description of earlier Shenzhou missions published in Encyclopedia Astronautica, the capsule deploys a single drogue[7] during re-entry, followed by a single orange-and-white main chute. The soft landing system (heat shield jettison, followed by ignition of soft landing rockets just before impact) is also similar to the Soyuz.

Orbital Module
Unlike the Soyuz, the Shenzhou's orbital module has its own propulsion, solar power, and control systems, allowing the spacecraft to achieve autonomous flight. The Chinese module can "continue as a free-flying, unmanned mini laboratory long after the reentry module has brought the crew back to earth."[8] The solar panels on the Shenzhou produce about 1.3 kW of energy, three times the capacity of the Soyuz. The Shenzhou also has improved solar panels that offer greater solar insulation than the original Russian design. Shenzhou's orbital module has a medium-resolution imaging spectroradiometer developed by the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, which can be used for civilian or military purposes.[9]

Aft Service Module
The aft service module has also been upgraded from the original Soyuz design. It is longer, fatter, and its base is less flared than the Soyuz. However, the orientation instruments are located in the center base of the service module, identical to the Soyuz. The Chinese module has improved heat shielding, weighs less than the Soyuz, and uses an ablative heat-shield design.[10]

Life-Support System
Chinese space officials openly admit to copying the Russian life-support system. China bought the system for the Shenzhou from Russia in the 1995 RKK Energia agreement and first tested it on the Shenzhou 2 mission in January of 2001. The space suits to be used by China's taikonauts on the SZ-5 are exact replicas of Russia's Sokol design.[11] This may reflect the desire to use proven technology in this critical area.

Docking System
China's desire to be involved in international space efforts, especially the International Space Station (ISS), may have played a part in the choice for Shenzhou's docking system. The docking system used on the SZ-5 appears to be based on the Russian-designed APAS-89 mechanism, which is used both on the NASA's space shuttles and the ISS.[12]

Motivation for the Manned Program
China's White Paper on Space states that the space program is intended "to meet the growing demands of economic construction, national security, science and technology development and social progress, protect China's national interests and build up the [sic] comprehensive national strength."[13] The Chinese leadership's motivation for investing so heavily in a manned space program is a combination of a belief that the resulting technological improvements will benefit national economic development and a desire to increase the credibility of the regime both domestically and internationally. Some Western analysts argue that China is also paying considerable attention to the military and defense gains that a manned space program could provide.

The prestige aspects of the space program play a critical role in providing the political will necessary to implement a project like the Shenzhou. The manned program has the support of China's top leadership, and has been a key objective for the Chinese space program for the last decade. After the successful launch of the Shenzhou 3, then President Jiang Zemin commented: "The successful launch of three Shenzhou spaceships takes the country to new heights of space science and technology."[14] Although China's space program is the most advanced in Asia, and viewed as equivalent to European programs, China has not been asked to join the 16-nation ISS, even though nations with smaller programs have been asked to participate. By becoming the third country to launch humans into space, China's leaders hope to demonstrate China's technological stature. A successful manned space flight will mark China as a member of an exclusive club.

Beijing has also tried to use the Shenzhou launch to improve the regime's domestic legitimacy. Images of the Shenzhou have been placed on phone cards, water heaters, and other items as part of a marketing strategy aimed at making the Shenzhou program a source of national pride.[15] Chinese space program officials have consistently played down the level of foreign assistance the Shenzhou program has received, and have portrayed the program as a great national achievement. Despite this propaganda, public reaction in China has been subdued. Some see the program as a waste of money, which should be spent instead on more pressing development issues, and an indicator that the leadership's priorities are misplaced.[16]

The potential scientific advancements of the Shenzhou program are also important rationales for the Chinese government's push towards manned space travel. Chinese leaders see the technological advances and resulting economic benefits as sufficient to justify the large investment of limited resources. China's space program has included work on space remote sensing, environmental monitoring, space materials, life sciences, astronomy, and physics. Successful development of the Shenzhou program would give China an increased capacity to carry out scientific experiments and develop useful technology, with potentially lucrative results.

Some analysts argue that the Shenzhou, along with the rest of the space program, is intrinsically linked to China's attempts to modernize its military and gain an advantage on U.S. forces and space assets.[17] It is true that the division between civilian and military space programs in China is nonexistent, with much of the control of the civilian program in the hands of the military. The Shenzhou program itself is overseen by the PLA's General Armament Department. The Chinese have admitted that the Shenzhou has reconnaissance capabilities[18] and many analysts point out technological gains from the manned program could be used for military space programs, such as development of anti-satellite weapons.[19] However, military goals are not the driving force for such a costly and time consuming program. If military development were the prime motivation, a manned space program would be an inefficient and expensive method to meet these goals.

Conclusion
The Chinese manned space program clearly owes much to the Russian Federation. However, it is not clear that the Chinese manned program could not have succeeded without Russian assistance, albeit at a slower pace. Russian assistance meant that China was not forced to "reinvent the wheel" and allowed China to develop an advanced spacecraft with "Chinese characteristics"' within a reasonable length of time. When the Shenzhou is finally launched, China's space officials will deservedly celebrate their accomplishments. But how long will the celebration last? As the recent discussion after the Columbia disaster demonstrates, many still question the value and cost-effectiveness of manned space flight, especially considering the potential loss of human life. Will a successful Shenzhou 5 mission yield the desired benefits in terms of domestic legitimacy and international prestige? Will the technological and economic benefits justify the costs of the ambitious manned space flight program envisioned by Chinese scientists? Or will China suffer a domestically devastating and internationally embarrassing loss of its first spacefarers? It remains to be seen if Chinese leaders will ultimately regard the Shenzhou program as a national accomplishment that deserves continued support, or as a money pit draining resources from other more vital projects.


[1] Brian Harvey, "China's Space Program: Emerging Competitor or Potential Partner," in James Clay Moltz, ed. New Challenges in Missile Proliferation, Missile Defense, and Space Security, Occasional Paper No. 12, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, <http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/opapers/op12/index.htm>.
[2] Mark Wade, "China: The Amazing History of Rocket and Space Development in China," Encyclopedia
Astronautica, <http://astronautix.com/articles/china/htm>. Although there has been speculation that China was given a complete Soyuz capsule by the Russian Federation, indications are that the China only received designs and relevant technologies.
[3] Yi Yao: "China Emphatically Sketches Great Space Plan," Liaowang, 21 October 2002, from FBIS CPP20021030000061.
[4] Howard O. DeVore, "China's Aerospace and Defence Industry," Special Report from Jane's Information Group, December 2000.
[5] Safety has played been an important factor in China's space program. According to Brian Harvey: "There has been a fanatical emphasis on quality control." Harvey goes on to quote a Chinese engineer as saying "We cannot afford failures." See Harvey, "China's Space Program: Emerging Competitor or Potential Partner," in Moltz, ed. New Challenges in Missile Proliferation, Missile Defense, and Space Security, <http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/opapers/op12/index.htm>.
[6] Unless otherwise indicated, the technical information from this section was drawn from the web-report "Shenzhou," from Encyclopedia Astronautica, <http://www.astronautix.com/craft/shenzhou.htm>.
[7] A "drogue" is a small parachute used to slow and stabilize a spacecraft, usually preceding deployment of the main landing parachute.
[8] James Oberg, "China's Great Leap Upward," Scientific American, October 2003, p. 79.
[9] Craig Covault, "Secretive Chinese Astronaut Training Advances in Beijing," Aviation Week & Space Technology, 15 July 2002, pg. 30.
[10] Craig Covault, "U.S. Snubs China at Space Congress," Aviation Week & Space Technology, 21 October 2003. Covault quotes Chinese engineer Wu Guoting who described the heat shield material as "a silic-based low-density charring ablator, filled with 'phenolic microball' material and reinforced by plastic honeycomb."
[11] Oberg, "China's Great Leap Upward," p. 80.
[12] Ibid.
[13] "White Paper on China's Space Activities," Information Office of the State Council (China), 22 November 2000, <http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/features/spacepaper/spacepaper.html>.
[14] "Jiang Zemin Watches, Comments on 'Shenzhou III' Launch," Xinhua News Agency, 25 March 2002 from FBIS CPP20020325000226.
[15] Joan Johnson-Freese, "China's Manned Space Program, Sun Tzu or Apollo Redux?" Naval War College Review (Summer 2003).
[16] Author's discussions, Summer 2003.
[17] Leonard David, "China's Space Program Driven by Military Ambitions," Space.com 13 March 2002, <http://www.space.com/news/china_space_020313.html>.
[18] Hou Yi, "Shenzhou-5 Launcher Ready for Transfer to Jiuquan Launch Site," SpaceDaily.com, 11 August 2003. The SZ-5 will have a CCD camera attached to the exterior with a ground resolution of 1.6 m, which could be used for military reconnaissance purposes.
[19] Charles R. Smith, "NASA Eyes China as New Space Partner," NewsMax.com, 5 April 2002, <http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/4/5/15446.shtml>


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Author(s): Stephanie Lieggi, Leigh Aldrich
Related Resources: East Asia, Missile, Weekly Story
Date Created: October 6, 2003
Date Updated: October 14, 2003
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