China's Quest for Space Dominance

"China started relatively late on agile satellite technology but achieved a large number of breakthroughs in a short period of time."

"The level of our technology has reached a world-leading position."

Yamg Fang, Beijing-3 project lead scientist

 

"It reflects the fact that Chinese space technology is catching up with the United States."

"This suggests that the U.S. commercial satellite industry will face competition from the Chinese. We can assume that the Chinese military satellites are at least as good."

"Until now the Chinese have been investing a lot of money in space, but rather on the Soviet model. There has been a lot of quantity, but not a lot of quality."

"If you thought that the U.S. was sitting pretty as an unchallenged superpower, that was never going to last."

Jonathan McDowell, astrophysicist, Harvard Smithsonian Centre 

The new Beijing-3 satellite equipped with artificial intelligence is capable of high-resolution images in panoramic screening areas up to three times more swiftly than versions designed in the United States, scientists involved in the project claim. Photographs of large areas can be taken with enough clarity to enable identification of military vehicles and weapons being carried, while the nimble satellite rotates at speeds unprecedented -- up to 10 degrees a second.

The study carrying details of the extraordinary claim has been published in the Chinese peer-reviewed journal Spacecraft Engineering. The advanced engineering being claimed as having succeeded where no other technology has yet gone before, is beyond impressive. The "nimbleness" of the satellite equips it to carry forward tasks considered technically impossible. This new satellite has exhibited its purposeful prowess by photographing the 6,300 kilometre winding Yangtze River running between the Tibetan plateau and the East China Sea.

 

It took the satellite one trip over China from north to south, to complete the phenomenal task, according to project lead scientist, Yang Fang. Beijing-3, he boasted, was two to three times faster than WorldView-4, to the present the most advanced Earth observation satellite developed by Lockheed Martin with similar technology, in the United States. 

 

It's a safe bet that on the evidence of the past, China utilized its usual short-cuts in experimental technology by lifting data through cyber-spying to enable it to 'improve' on the original.

 

The Chinese satellite was tested in June, according to the information included in the published study, by performing "an in-depth scan" of a central area of San Francisco Bay, where it captured images totalling 3,800 square kilometres in a mere 42 seconds, the scientists employed by DFH Satellite Company Ltd, part of the Chinese Academy of Space Technology, elucidated. 

The images, 50 centimetres per pixel "sharp enough to identify a military vehicle on the street and tell what type of weapons it might be carrying", certainly qualified as a reason to keep American. political thinkers up at night, fuming over the certainty that China appears to be rapidly advancing in its goal to equal and fully surpass technological advantages in new technologies with military applications, over those of the U.S.

WorldView-4 by contrast, with its commercial satellite product gives images of some 30 centimetres per pixel and though other military-grade satellites are able to capture a similar level of detail, the opinion of experts is that the main technological advance of imaging at this resolution and the speed at which it appears to work is quite impressive.

"President Xi Jinping has declared that China’s ‘Space Dream’ is to overtake all nations and become the leading space power by 2045." 

"This all feeds into China’s ambition to be the world’s single science and technology superpower."

Christopher Newman, professor of space law and policy, Northumbria University, United Kingdom

A Long March-7 Y3 carrier rocket carrying the Tianzhou-2 cargo spacecraft blasts off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on May 29, 2021 in Wenchang, Hainan Province of China.

Yuan Chen | VCG | Getty Images