Astronomers say a Chinese rocket is expected to hit the moon on March 4. It was the latest example of China's presence in space. News of the possible collision comes after Beijing published a blueprint for satellite development, space exploration and the placement of more astronauts in Earth orbit.
Experts expect Beijing to realize the targets in its five-year plan for space development, regardless of the predicted collision.
China's space program will rival Russia and America, especially in terms of commercialization of space technology, they added.
"China should be wary in terms of increased competitiveness," said Marco Caceres, a space studies recruit at market analysis firm Teal Group. "Partly because the U.S. was far ahead, so countries like China, whose economies are growing very quickly, could catch up."
China launched its first satellite in 1970 and placed the first Chinese in space in 2003, becoming the third country in the world, after Russia and the U.S., to reach the milestone. In 2019, a Chinese spacecraft made a historic landing on the far side of the moon. Beijing is in the process of adding a space station, in addition to Tiangong, by the end of this year.
China was removed from the International Space Station, a cooperation operation between Europe, the U.S., Russia, Canada and Japan, due to U.S. national security concerns.
Over the next five years, Beijing's space program will put people in space on "long-term tasks" for scientific research, complete findings on Mars and explore the Jupiter system, according to "China's Space Program: A 2021 Perspective."
The next half-decade will be an improvement as well as an increase in the capacity of the space transport system, and China will "continue to improve its space infrastructure" through the integration of remote sensing, communications, navigation and satellite positioning technology, the document said.
China is expected to realize all of its targets year-on-year as it has been working on them all for the past decade or so, with plenty of government funding, analysts said.
The January report actually "incorporates" what they're already working on, said Richard Bitzinger, a defense analyst with the Defense Budget Project, a nonprofit washington research institute. It's technically possible that China could mine ore on asteroids, Bitzinger said, although that requires complex workmanship, such as exploration and drilling.
Many of the achievement targets in the blueprint are intended to showcase peaceful goals and a positive international image, he added. "Most manned space programs are symbolic in nature," Bitzinger said. "Economically, they sell, but in terms of showing strength, the programs are perfect."
The blueprint calls for future Chinese space missions to remain "peaceful," despite Washington's suspicions that China's space program will be directed for military purposes.