A new Defense Department report says that China is aggressively ramping up its space program.

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May 22, 2013 8:39 am Robert Zimmerman

The competition heats up: A new Defense Department report says that China is aggressively ramping up its space program.

China will continue to augment its orbiting assets, with the planned launch of 100 more satellites through 2015. These launches include imaging, remote sensing, navigation, communication and scientific satellites, as well as manned spacecraft.

China is pursuing a variety of air, sea, undersea, space, counterspace and information warfare systems, as well as operational concepts, moving toward an array of overlapping, multilayered offensive capabilities extending from China’s coast into the western Pacific. China’s 2008 Defense White Paper asserts that one of the priorities for the development of China’s armed forces is to “increase the country’s capabilities to maintain maritime, space and electromagnetic space security.”

Further, China continues to develop the Long March 5 rocket, which is intended to lift heavy payloads into space. LM-5 will more than double the size of the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Geosynchronous Orbit (GEO) payloads China is capable of placing into orbit. To support these rockets, China began constructing the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in 2008. Located on Hainan Island, this launch facility is expected to be complete sometime this year 2013, with the initial LM-5 launch scheduled for 2014.

One comment

Pzatchok
May 22, 2013 at 11:37 am
China is turning into a nation of big dreams and little results.

Its economy is churning to a massive slowdown and they have not reached any of the goals they have already set.

Look at all the massive building projects that are scattered all over China that sit in ruin now because they could not be finished. The tallest office building, the worlds biggest mall and so on.

As their people want and need more public services the Chinese government is finding it harder and harder to reach its own goals. The people want clean water and paved roads. That is less to go to other projects.

They have ramped up their military spending 10 fold to try to catch up to the rest of the world and to have the ability to project power around the world like America, GB and in some ways Russia can. But look at them. They are just now getting their first pieces of modern deep water navy on the water and they are not even finished and serviceable yet.

They have HUGE organized crime problems like Mexico has but on an even larger scale.
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/719978.shtml
In 2011 its estimated that 21,000 tons of rare earth metals were smuggled out of China,and this is after an export ban imposed by the government.
Its estimated that organized crime in China is in EVERY single industry. Huge organized theft rings who can move into a manufacturing area and strip it clean of all equipment. Then move it and resell it to the next group of criminals setting up a illegal factory.

A new Defense Department report says that China is aggressively ramping up its space program.

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