THE RHYTHM OF CHINA’S SPACE PROGRAM

There are several approaches to analyzing the rhythm and characteristics of the Chinese space program itself. The following are the basic statistics of the Chinese space program. By the end of 2011, China had made 154 launches and these are listed in Table 10.3 (the annex covers the 164 launches to end in June 2012). Over the period 1970-2010, this gives an average of over three per year, as may be seen from Table 10.3.

Table 10.3. Annual Chinese launches, 1970-2011.

Table 10.4. Annual launches by leading space nations, 2007-11.

The pace of the early Chinese space program was quite peristaltic, with some years in which there were no launches at all – almost repeated in 2001, when there was only one. Not until the late 1990s did the Chinese establish a rhythm of five or six launches a year, with China breaking into double figures in the late 2000s, 2011 clearly evident as the breakthrough year in which it overtook the United States (Table 10.4). This is clearly the upward pace of an expanding, challenging program.

The categories of spacecraft launched and the emphasis of the program will already be evident from the previous chapters (e. g. applications, space science, manned, etc.). These statistics, in Table 10.5, gave a more detailed picture of satellite types. By the end of June 2012, China had launched 202 satellites, in the descending order shown.

One must be careful with these figures, for micro-satellites and piggybacks may constitute a larger number than their importance suggests. By contrast, the low percentages of some other programs (e. g. weather, navigation) may understate their importance to the program as a whole. Nevertheless, the emphasis on communica­tions (25%) is apparent, for such satellites comprise the largest single element of the program, at over a quarter, combining domestic communications and international commercial launches. At an earlier stage of the program, it was possible to divide

Type	Number	Percent
Communications1	50	25%
Military2	37	18%
FSW recoverable3	23	11%
Earth resources/oceanographic4	19	9%
Navigation (Beidou)	17	8%
Micro-satellites, piggyback5	16	8%
Meteorological (Feng Yun)	16	8%
Scientific and lunar6	14	7%
Manned (Shenzhou, Tiangong)	10	5%
202

Satellites to orbit by 30th June 2012. Percentages rounded for convenience.

Notes:

1 Domestic, international, and commercial; Tian Lian relay satellites.

2 JSSW; Yaogan; Shi Jian; Shi Jian 6 series, 11 series and 12; Feng Huo; Shentong.

3 FSW series and Shi Jian S.

4 Haiyang; Huanjing; CBERS; Tansuo; Tianhui.

5 KF-1; SAC; Freja; Chuangxin; Banxing; Naxing; MEMS; Xi Wang; Yaogan 9; Pixing; Tianxun; Tiantuo.

6 Shi Jian 1, 2 series, 4, 5, 7; Chang e; Qi Qi; Tan Ce. Dong Fang Hong included here for convenience.

these between Chinese government and foreign, but, as Chapter 5’s discussion of satellite ownership showed, this distinction has become ever more difficult to make. The next largest category is military (18%), which includes the early JSSW elint series, Earth observation missions (Yaogan, Zi Yuan, Feng Huo, Shentong), and the numerous Shi Jian 6 and 11 and Shi Jian 12 demonstrator, even though their precise purpose is uncertain. Third comes the recoverable satellite program (11%), which would have been a much more dominant part of the program had these calculations been made in the 1990s, but it has since fallen in significance. The proportions of the remaining categories are remarkably similar: micro-satellites, scientific, navigation, meteorological, and Earth resources (in the range 7-9%). The manned part of the program, although the most visible and the most heavily invested in, is actually the smallest proportion of the total (5%). Compared to earlier years, we are left with the impression of a program that is now much more broadly based.