Project 921 (Phase III)
Last updated: 21 April 2008
The Project 921 proposal presented in 1992 outlined a three-step strategy in PRC’s manned spaceflight programme. The third phase of the programme aimed to build a permanently-manned space station. The project has yet been approved by the PRC government. The PRC is also studying the concept of a new-generation reusable space-earth transport system similar to the U.S. space shuttle system.
The PRC’s future permanently-manned space station will be 20 tonnes in mass, roughly in the same class as Zvezda, the core module of the International Space Station (ISS). Modules of the space station will have to be launched by the new generation CZ-5 space launch vehicle (SLV) from the newly-built Wenchang Satellite Launch Centre in Hainan Island, which is expected to become operational by 2012.
Advocators within the space industry claimed that a space station will secure PRC’s status in the global competition to reach the outer space. However, some within the party and government has voiced their doubt as whether China really needs an expensive space station. The decision as whether to implement the project will have to wait until the mid-2010s, when the Project 921-II is completed.
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| Artist impression of the future PRC space station in the orbit (Source: Chinese Internet) |
Space Shuttle and Spaceplane
The PRC space industry is also studying the concept of a new-generation reusable space-earth transport system, which may eventually replace the Shenzhou spacecraft currently in use. Images of an aerodynamic scaled model, ready to be launched from under the fuselage of a H-6A bomber, were first published on the Chinese Internet in December 2007. The system, expected to first fly around 2020, was said to be similar in concept to the U.S. space shuttle (vertical launch, horizontal landing), but is more reliable and economic than the latter. The space industry is also interested in a spaceplane with the horizontal take-off and landing capability.
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| The wind tunnel model of a space shuttle design (Source: Chinese Internet) |
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