China has made progress
in its research on space debris, including ways to better protect
its space vehicles in orbit from colliding with such objects, a
senior Chinese space official said in Beijing Wednesday.
Guo Baozhu, deputy
director of the China National
Space Administration, said the research would help prolong the
life span of space vehicles and protect the safety of China's
planned manned space flights.
China National Space
Administration has improved its monitoring facilities for space
debris since 1995, and it achieved outstanding results in two
international operations to monitor re-entry of dangerous space
objects, said the deputy director.
Chinese scientists also
built a database for tractable space debris and established a
theoretical basis for research into risk evaluation of space
debris.
Chinese space scientists
developed software for early warning for space vehicles, and
simulation tests of collisions involving space debris and space
vehicles, said the official.
He acknowledged that
China's research also helped reduce the likelihood of
disintegration of the end of the carrier rockets through new ways
to discharge remaining propellants.
China started its
research program on space debris in June 1995, when it joined the
Inter-Agency Space Debris
Coordination Committee, an international
organization.
By the end of the year
2000, China formulated its action agenda on space debris for
2001-2005.
The official noted that
China would focus its attention on research programs to protect its
spaceflight and space vehicles from space debris.
Professor Du Heng, chief
scientist at the Center for Space Science and Applied Research
under the Chinese
Academy of Sciences, reportedly told a workshop on space debris
earlier this month that China has developed an alarm system capable
of keeping its spaceship Shenzhou V away from the orbit of space
debris by automatically changing its propulsion and
speed.
The center is keeping a
close watch over 9,131 traceable pieces of space debris to screen
those that are most likely to get in the way of the spaceship, the
official English-language newspaper China Daily reported
on Monday.
Space debris refers to
artificial objects or fragments cast off in space, whether
deliberately or unintentionally. Since the former Soviet Union sent
the first craft into space in 1957, more than 26,000 objects have
been sent into space by the humankind.
Now there are a total of
9,131 traceable debris objects in space, together with a wealth of
smaller pieces, moving at great speed.
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(Xinhua News Agency August 14, 2003)