China Plans More Than 20 Space Launches in 2016

China has announced its busy 2016 launch manifest, with more than 20 missions scheduled for this year. The country that conducted 19 successful space flights in 2015, intends to launch its Tiangong 2 space laboratory and a manned spacecraft Shenzhou 11, among other military and commercial orbital missions.

The first Chinese launch this year will be carried out on Jan. 15, when a Long March 3B rocket will blastoff the Belintersat 1 communications satellite for Belarus. Liftoff will take place from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, located in Sichuan Province. The spacecraft was built by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and is China’s first communications satellite exported to Europe.

China preps for space warfare

Once the American satellite system is out-matched and vulnerable, it’s lights out for the United States. It’s the last unlocked door and leaves the American homeland open to attack. China and Russia have already demonstrated they have the cyberwarfare edge.

War is not far away and extermination of Americans is the goal. This is what the Chinese buildup for Taiwan is all about.

“Our military battle preparation appears to aim at Taiwan, but in fact is aimed at the United States, and the preparation is far beyond the scope of attacking aircraft carriers or satellites.” – Chinese Defense Minister Chi Haotian, December 2005.

War is not far away and extermination of Americans is the goal. Hand-to-hand combat with China was predicted by China to take place within a decade.

America needs to wake up not soon, but now, and return to God — the only thing that can save the United States, which is now past the point of no return regardless who wins the 2016 Presidential election.

 

Following recent tests of anti-satellite missiles and near-space hypersonic vehicles, China’s military will soon create a new Space Force within the People’s Liberation Army, a sign Beijing is preparing for future space warfare.

Military analysts say there has been no official announcement of the new space warfare unit; however, unofficial sources in China revealed the unit will be part of a new Strategic Support Forces service that will include nuclear missiles — currently under the Second Artillery Force — along with an electronic information forces, cyber warfare units and electronic and signals intelligence.

The shift to space and information warfare is part of a major military reorganization that has been underway in China for the past several years. It’s designed to transform the once ground forces-heavy PLA into a high-technology force.

As China Stalks Satellites, U.S. and Japan Prepare to Defend Them

 

 

In May 2013 the Chinese government conducted what it called a science space mission from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China. Half a world away, Brian Weeden, a former U.S. Air Force officer, wasn’t buying it. The liftoff took place at night and employed a powerful rocket as well as a truck-based launch vehicle—all quite unusual for a science project, he says.

In a subsequent report for the Secure World Foundation, the space policy think tank where he works, Weeden concluded that the Chinese launch was more likely a test of a mobile rocket booster for an antisatellite (ASAT) weapon that could reach targets in geostationary orbit about 22,236 miles above the equator. That’s the stomping grounds of expensive U.S. spacecraft that monitor battlefield movements, detect heat from the early stages of missile launches, and help orchestrate drone fleets. “This is the stuff the U.S. really cares about,” Weeden says.

The Pentagon never commented in detail on last year’s launch—and the Chinese have stuck to their story. U.S. and Japanese analysts say China has the most aggressive satellite attack program in the world. It has staged at least six ASAT missile tests over the past nine years, including the destruction of a defunct Chinese weather satellite in 2007. “It’s part of a Chinese bid for hegemony, which is not just about controlling the oceans but airspace and, as an extension of that, outer space,” says Minoru Terada, deputy secretary-general of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Is China’s space programme a cover for anti-satellite technology? Expert claims we should be wary of ‘missiles’ being launched

On 15 October 2003 China launched their first ‘taikonaut,’ the Chinese term for an astronaut, into space on the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft

This has been followed by further space exploration achievements, including an Earth-orbiting laboratory called Tiangong-1 and a lunar rover named Jade Rabbit.

But is it all a front to build anti-satellite technology? That’s what one expert warns we should be wary of, and not just from China, but Iran and North Korea as well.

In a paper called Dangerous Space Incidents, Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations explains how satellites could be under threat from the rising space exploration capabilities of certain nations.

Through a glass, darkly: Chinese, American, and Russian anti-satellite testing in space

On May 13, 2013, China launched a rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province. The Chinese Academy of Sciences stated it was a high-altitude scientific research mission, but unofficial U.S. government sources say it was actually a test of a new ballistic missile related to China’s anti-satellite (ASAT) program. This article uses open source information, including commercial satellite imagery purchased from DigitalGlobe, to assess these claims. It also compares what is known about current Chinese ASAT testing in space with American and Russian ASAT testing in space over the last five decades.

While there is no conclusive proof, the available evidence strongly suggests that China’s May 2013 launch was the test of the rocket component of a new direct ascent ASAT weapons system derived from a road-mobile ballistic missile. The system appears to be designed to place a kinetic kill vehicle on a trajectory to deep space that could reach medium earth orbit (MEO), highly elliptical orbit (HEO), and geostationary Earth orbit (GEO). If true, this would represent a significant development in China’s ASAT capabilities. But it would not be the first instance of an ASAT weapons system designed to attack satellites in deep space, as the Russians developed at least the components of such a system in the 1990s. Thus it is more a signal that China is a new entrant into what is an old game, and while there is some knowledge as to what capabilities China may be developing, why they are developing those capabilities is still unclear.