China Constructs its fourth Satellite Launching Center

It was recently reported that China has begun constructing its fourth satellite launching centre on Hainan Island in the southern part of the country. The Hainan Space Launch Centre will come up near Wenchang city in the north-east coast of the island and is expected to be operational by 2013. The official news agency Xinhua reported this by quoting Wang Weichang, who has been appointed the director of the station.

Wang has also said that the new launch pad would be used for the launch of large space stations, deep space-probe satellites, synchronous satellites and would be China's first coastal launch centre located at the lowest altitude. It will be capable of launching 10 to 12 space vehicles a year. Wang added that the new launching pad located north of the equator would also allow China to get its share of international commercial space launchers.

It is a known fact that the Chinese space programme is run by the military and setting up of a fourth launching station comes as Beijing prepares for future manned space flights.These space flights would be launched on a new generation of rockets to be called Long March series, first of which would be launched from the Hainan pad in 2014. This new launch pad would be used for the launch of large space stations, deep space-probe and geo-synchronous satellites. It will also be China's first coastal launch centre. The Long March rockets, which feature heavily in commercial launches, are made by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, and satellites are produced by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. Both are state-owned.

This launch pad follows the construction of sites at Jiuquan in the Gobi desert, currently the country’s only manned spacecraft launch centre, Taiyuan in Northern China’s Shanxi Province which is used for launching satellites into low and medium orbits and Xichang which is located in south-west China’s Sichuan Province, which launches powerful rockets and geostationary satellites. These are all inland situated and railways are used to transport rocket-carriers to the launch sites.

It is because of the limitations imposed by railway tunnels that China's current launch vehicles have tended to be "tall and slim". This was stated by Pang Zhihao, a researcher and the deputy editor-in-chief of the monthly Space International. He also added that that the new launch centre is accessible from the sea and will be able to accept much larger launchers with more power and bigger payloads. He further added that, "in future, domestic rocket-carriers could be short and stout, which will make them easier to control in flight and, therefore, more reliable". The location of the new launch site is also a bonus because any failure during takeoff would not mean debris could fall on populated areas.

There have also been assertions that the Chinese programme borrows heavily from Soviet/ Russian technology and has many parallels with the American and Russian space agendas of the 1960s. Scholars have suggested that the Chinese space programme appears to be surprisingly similar to the one followed by United States and Soviet Union in as much that the Chinese are paying close attention to the moon, having  sent scientific spacecraft with the public intention to land a person on the moon. This all appears to be similar to what was undertaken during the 1960s.

China’s ambitious space programme conducted its first manned space flight five years ago, but there is already talk of landing a taikonaut on the moon by 2020 and whispers of a manned mission to Mars. The Chinese are not participating in the International Space Station, which earlier this month hosted a record 13 astronauts and cosmonauts from five countries, before seven returned to earth aboard Nasa’s Discovery craft on September 11.

This new launch site is also being advertised as being a civilian facility but it also has a military and a lunar planetary capability. This will provide China with a low-cost option to tackle the supremacy of the other countries. The Chinese government has also said the Wenchang Center will be more open to the public and become a tourist attraction. This will raise the profile of the center with Western media and be a public relations boost for promoting its commercial launch abilities.

This growing Chinese space capability has been a concern for India. Though India has also developed its own space programme, launching a £49 million expedition to the moon which ended in partial failure on August 30, 2009 when the scientists lost contact with the unmanned spacecraft, there is a lot more which India needs to do in order to bridge this gap. Chinese have been moving ahead with a speed which is becoming alarming for its South Asian neighbour. This increasing gap has proved to be quite worrisome for the Indian strategic community.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the views either of the Editorial Committee or the Centre for Land Warfare Studies).