Special to CosmicTribune.com, August 28, 2024 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher An article in the June 2024 issue of the Chinese journal Aerospace China offers a review of China’s growing commercial space sector focusing on space launcher and mega satellite constellation makers, but it offers fewer insights into potential commercial manned space efforts. Ultimately, the Chinese […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, August 20, 2024 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher A recent report reveals that one or more Western governments are concerned that China is in the process of proliferating satellite data services and satellite technology to Iran, that could eventually enable Iran to achieve precision targeting against Israel and then against global targets, for […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, August 14, 2024 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher After 2035 or so, China intends to build a large Moon Base capable of supporting multiple astronauts, along with attendant unmanned exploration, power and communication support and construction systems. In 2021 this intention was mentioned in some of the initial documents released describing the then […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, July 30, 2024 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher China is heating up its race with the United States to dominate the Moon, by proposing to increase its “Moon coalition” and by moving ahead with its initial Moon architecture. On July 21, in coordination with the United Nations’ designation of July 20 as International […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, July 24, 2024 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher While the ongoing and unpredictable United States presidential campaign promises to highlight partisan political divisions on numerous issues, the last decade has seen U.S. space policy tending toward a basic consensus stressing three pillars that can be credited, two to Republicans and one to Democrats. […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, July 10, 2024 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher The China-led International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) coalition to establish permanent Moon bases in the 2030s has gained new members in recent months: Nicaragua and Thailand in April; Serbia in May; and on July 3 Kazakhstan became the 12th member state of the ILRS. Though […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, July 3, 2024 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher In China, space related crashes or falling debris from space launch vehicles (SLV) are not cause for celebration. They are usually cause for embarrassment and as they usually happen over populated areas, they can also be very dangerous for Chinese especially if the crash involves […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, June 26, 2024 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher In the last week China has advanced its ambitions for Moon control and space control via two operations: first on June 26 China recovered the world’s first Moon samples from the far side of the Moon; and on June 23 the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, June 19, 2024 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher China has presented evidence that its manned Moon program is real, not just an endless collection of journal articles, power point briefings and curious models. On June 14 the principal Chinese state owned space conglomerate, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), conducted a […]
Special to CosmicTribune.com, June 12, 2024 Geostrategy-Direct By Richard Fisher For its fourth flight — in less than a year — on June 6, Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship epitomized what the SpaceX mission announcer called their “rapid iterative development” process, exploiting a crash or “failure” to produce data that improves the next mission. Perhaps the […]