China first started the man space missions in their eighth five year (1991-1995) plan. Although they started late, they made progress at a steady and focused pace. They almost caught up with the American. They are now competing with the US in the space station, lunar landing and colonization, and eventually landing on Mars.
China sent their first taikonaut in space in 2003. They performed the first space walk in 2008 and rendezvous of two spacecrafts in 2012. They then started building their space station in 2021.
China built its space station (Tiangong) from 2021 to 2022. The whole construction process was planned out, tested, and refined in a series of Shenzhou missions prior to 2021. It was then executed and deployed from June of 2021 to December of 2022. The construction could be roughly broken down into the following stages: 1) The core module was launched into space. It was the center of the entire space station and provided living, working, and control support to the whole station. 2) They launched two experimental modules (Wentian and Mengtian) into space. The modules were docked to the two sides of the core module to form a “T” structure. During this stage, crews and materials were delivered to space using the Shenzhou spacecraft and Tianzhou cargo spacecraft. The Taikonauts were rotated in and out. They worked and lived in the core module. Their daily work loads included assembly tasks as well as control and maintenance tasks. Some of the assembly tasks included: advanced rendezvous and docking of the spacecraft, on-orbit assembly, and extravehicular activities. The control and maintenance tasks included: set up the autonomous operations inside the space station, and set up the environment control and life support throughout the station. Finally, the space station was completed on December 31, 2022. It became a milestone in Chinese space exploration.
After the space station, landing on the moon is the next goal. China is preparing a manned mission to land on the moon. They are based on a sequence of projects, some are collecting information, and others are testing out new designs, technology, and spacecraft. The preparations were/are to be performed as follows in no specific order. 1) They sent two robotic spacecraft (Chang’e-5 and 6) to the moon to collect soil samples for selecting the landing sites for the manned mission. 2) They developed a new heavy-lift rocket (Long March 10) for sending spacecraft and Taikonauts to orbit to the moon. 3) They developed the spacecraft to the moon with more advanced environmental control, life support, and emergency rescue capabilities. 4) They developed a new lunar lander, which would land accurately on the lunar surface and later send the taikonauts back to orbit safely. 5) They need to select and train the taikonauts for the missions. The Taikonauts must have excellent physical and psychological qualifications, and master the necessary skills for working and surviving in the harsh lunar environment. 6) In additions, they also need to perform ground simulation training, lunar topography and landform research, lunar sample analysis and other scientific research work in providing scientific support for the actual operations on the moon. In short, China is taking meticulous and methodological steps in landing their taikonauts on the moon.
