Exploring China Opportunities: China Space Station empowers aerospace industry of over $100 billion

China has made significant strides in space exploration over the past two decades, from launching its first manned mission in 2003 with taikonaut Yang Liwei to the landmark completion of the construction of the China Space Station (CSS) in 2022. The CSS, which involves 14 major systems, is co-constructed by over a thousand domestic companies, empowering an industrial chain of over 1 trillion yuan (about $139 billion).

Zhou Jianping, chief designer of the China Manned Space Program, said the CSS, which consists of five parts: the Tianhe core module, the Wentian lab module, the Mengtian lab module, the Shenzhou manned spacecraft and the Tianzhou cargo spacecraft, is expected to surpass the International Space Station in terms of information, energy, power technology and operating cost-effectiveness. Zhou made the remarks at the 4th China Summit Forum on Human Factors Engineering in 2019. 

The country's Shenzhou-17 crew is currently in orbit. The team has been working for more than four months, and their various scientific experiments at the station are progressing smoothly.

The total weight of the CSS is close to 100 tonnes, equivalent to the weight of 67 cars. The internal personnel residence space is about 110 cubic meters. It is 44 square meters when converted into a 2.5-meter-high housing, which is constructed with thousands of pieces of equipment.

Surging industry

According to statistics from the China Aerospace Industry Quality Association, the country's commercial aerospace market size increased from 376.4 billion yuan to 1.02 trillion yuan from 2015 to 2020, with a compound annual growth rate of 22.09 percent.

The Taibo Think Tank predicts that from 2023 to 2028, China's commercial aerospace industry will enter a golden period of development, with the Chinese market alone reaching 2.8 trillion yuan in 2025.

In 2023, there were 22,769 newly registered commercial aerospace-related companies in China, over five times the number in 2019, according to Tianyancha data.

Among the national commercial aerospace-related enterprises, 82.4 percent are private enterprises, and private capital is becoming an important force in promoting the development and innovation of China's aerospace industry.

China's aerospace companies are mainly located in Beijing, Guangdong, Shaanxi, Jiangsu, and Shanghai. From the perspective of the industrial chain, the country's commercial aerospace industry chain covers upstream rocket launch, satellite and ground equipment development, midstream satellite operation and downstream application links.

In terms of application scenarios, the industry covers traditional communications, navigation and remote sensing and emerging application scenarios such as satellite internet, space travel, space mining, and deep space exploration.

The market size of China's satellite communications industry is estimated to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 8.4 percent, reaching 344.7 billion yuan in 2024.

The space information services represented by satellite internet are expected to become the main business of the space economy in the long term, boosting the creation of new enterprises and further developing the space industry.

Tech breakthroughs

As one of the most technologically intensive and innovative sci-tech projects, China's manned space program has obtained more than 4,000 invention patents and carried out over 60 space science and application tasks on the CSS with solid outcomes.

These successes have significantly advanced China's overall sci-tech level. One noteworthy achievement is the innovative robotic arms installed on the CSS, which assist astronauts during spacewalks.

Zhu Chao, an engineer in the design department at the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation Fifth Research Academy, told China Media Group (CMG) that "From the project demonstration in 2006 to the successful launch in 2021, our team of over a hundred members has spent 15 years to achieve this. We created each robotic arm with 18,000 parts and 500,000 lines of code. It is a very complex system costing huge effort."

Compared to a human arm, which has a single joint in the shoulder, elbow and wrist, the CSS' robotic arm has three joints in the shoulder, one elbow joint and three wrist joints in addition to two devices on both ends of the arm, giving it a wide span of over 10 meters and a lot of dexterity to move around.

With all the joints, the robotic arm can reach and fetch objects up to 25 tonnes from every angle and any location on the space station. The arm is also equipped with a visual system. The two devices on both ends of the arm can function as "claws" to grab cargo and capture aircraft, and in turn catch and release several preset connectors on the space station, allowing the arm to "walk" on the station's body.

Another eye-catching part of the CSS is the two pairs of flexible solar panels on both Wentian and Mengtian lab modules. The largest boasts an expanded area of more than 138 square meters, equivalent to the size of two badminton courts.

Chinese researchers adopted innovative ultra-thin lightweight composite materials to load these huge solar panels into the rocket for space launch. In this case, the flexible solar wings can be as thin as only 18 centimeters when folded.

Liu Bihai, a deputy chief designer at the Mengtian Power System Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, told CGTN that the team has "a special equipment called solar array huge driving device, wrist-like bearing units to help rotate these two solar arrays, 360 degrees to face the sunlight in unblocked positions."

"The flexible solar arrays can be folded first. Astronauts can conduct a spacewalk and remove the solar array with the help of a robotic arm. Then we can repair or change that when a new solar array is sent to space via the Tianzhou cargo ship," Liu said.

Space engineers say the four big solar wings will generate nearly 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity for the CSS per day, which is equivalent to the electricity consumption of an ordinary family for nearly half a year. The flexible solar panels mark a jump forward in China's solar array technology and will ensure the stable and long-term operations of China's spacecraft.

Future expansion

China plans to expand its space station into six modules from the existing three in coming years, said Zhang Qiao, a researcher at the China Academy of Space Technology. "The space station will play an important role as a 'space home port,' providing an alternative platform for a near-Earth space station." The expert made the remarks at the 74th International Astronautical Congress.

It will weigh 180 tonnes after expansion, about 40 percent of the mass of the International Space Station, which has been in orbit for over two decades and is expected to be decommissioned after 2030. Zhang said the operational lifetime of China's space station will be over 15 years, more than the 10 years the country previously announced.

Regarding the expansion, Zhang said an inflatable, deployable module is also in the plan for use as the expansion module for the near-Earth space station and a preliminary verification for manned lunar exploration.

Other plans, including the development of large space antennas and telescopes, 3D printers, intelligent robots, and a debris observation, detection and warning system, are also underway.

A digital twin of the station will also be constructed, and big data and AI technology will also be developed to predict the working status and operation management of in-orbit spacecraft.

In the coming years, over 1,000 applications across 65 projects will be implemented on the space station. This effort aims to advance key technologies in special material preparation, stem cell and regenerative medicine, high-precision time-frequency systems, and quantum precision measurement, Zhang added.

China follows the principle of peaceful use, equality, mutual benefit and common development, said Zhang, adding that the country will conduct more international collaboration and exchanges with other countries and regions.

Fueled by growing confidence and international collaboration, China embarks on a new chapter toward a robust space presence. Its future advancements in aerospace are certain to benefit not only China but also humanity as a whole.