China Military Online, 2017-10-20
BEIJING, Oct. 20 (ChinaMil) — “China aims to have more than 200 spacecraft in orbit by 2020 with about 30 launches annually, and China will strive to surpass the EU and reach the level of world’s space power”, said Lei Fanpei, a delegate to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and chairman of the board of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), in Beijing on October 18.
Lei expressed on the first day of the 19th CPC National Congress that 30 percent of China’s aviation technology have reached world’s advanced level at present.
He added that China will increase the number to 60 percent by 2030 and surpass Russia and become a global space power. By 2045, China will catch up with the US in some key areas and become a comprehensive space power.
Lei said that President Xi’s report at the 19th CPC National Congress clearly puts forward the strategic goal of building a space power.
He pointed out that from the products and technical level of the results, one-third of the technical indicators and half of the economic indicators of China have achieved world-class level and China has now entered the ranks of major space countries.
But China is still not a space power, said Lei.
According to Lei, the CASC will build and launch China’s first space station and achieve the moon sampling return and Mars landing detection, complete the construction of global satellite navigation system and high-resolution earth observation system, comprehensively promote the development of heavy-duty launch vehicles, build communications, navigation and remote sensing satellite system-based civil space infrastructure in order to equip China with comprehensive space exploration and application capabilities.