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China launched this Friday, December 27, with success, a Long March-5 rocket, one of the most powerful launchers in the world. A first step towards the Mars mission planned for 2020.
With this successful launch, China regains its pride in terms of space conquest . During the two previous launches, the Long March-5 rocket had damaged at sea the first time and had not managed to reach a speed sufficient to place its satellite in orbit during the second attempt.
Objective Mars in 2020
It therefore took two years of work to rethink and improve this equivalent rocket from the European Ariane 5 or the American Delta IV Heavy. The Chinese model is equipped with a reusable launcher which can carry a maximum load of 14 tonnes in high orbit and 28 tonnes in low orbit. It is a key element in the Chinese space conquest, especially for the future mission to the planet Mars scheduled for 2020 .
Longue Marche-5 should also be used in the coming months to launch a first probe on Mars. This Friday, its cap included the geostationary satellite Shijian 20, which will evolve 36,000 kilometers over Asia. Its purpose is to transfer a terabit of data per space via space and must also play a role in ultra-secure military telecommunications.
China conquers space
The communist regime, which invests heavily in its space program, hopes to catch up with Europe and the United States. Its space budget has been estimated for 2017 at 8.4 billion dollars (7.5 billion euros) by the OECD, more than that of Russia or Japan.
Last January, China became the first country to land a spacecraft on the far side of the moon . It plans to install a large operational space station in orbit around 2022 and aims, within ten years, to send a first Chinese to the Moon.