governance in space; The competition of world powers in the sky

Mehr News; International group: America, China, Russia, the European Union and some countries such as India, North Korea and Japan have been drawing competitions in space in recent decades, especially in the last few years in the world.

World
Reports indicate that The competition between America, China, Russia and Europe has intensified not only on the planet but also in the field of space, and in this direction, some emerging powers such as India and Japan are also making a massive effort to register themselves as one of the effective powers in the space club of the world. .

Jonathan McDowell, an American astronomer and astrophysicist, in his annual research on global space activities and missions for 2023, reported 223 launches in 2023. Space was recorded around the world, while the number of launches in 2022 is 186, which is more than double the 85 attempts made in 2016.

In other words, the number of space launches in 2023 has increased by 20 percent compared to the previous year.

According to this report, the number of satellites successfully put into orbit in 2023 also increased to 2,917, which was 2,485 in the previous year. case and only 216 cases were in 2016.
Of these, only 66 of these birds had military purposes or were launched by military organizations, and the rest pursued “commercial purposes”.

USA

According to media reports, the United States has surpassed China and Russia in terms of the number of space launches and satellites placed in the earth’s orbit in 2023. Of course, instead of the United States government, the “SpaceX” company owned by “Elon Musk” recorded these actions and victories in the field of space.

Since 2019, the company has increased its activities in the field of space, the company gained special fame with its first launch called Starlink, which made Internet access universal. .

Europe

According to media reports, Europe wants to remain in the list of powers in the space race, or at least not fall far behind. But experts say Europe’s space industry pales in comparison to when the United States and China have restarted space exploration and private projects are expanding across the Atlantic, as well as Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite complex to broadcast high-speed internet. .

It is in this context that the 22 ministers of the member states of the European Space Agency (ESA) hold a national summit every three years to adopt the policies of this union in the field of space. In this meeting, the budget of this institution for the activities and explorations of Europe in space will be determined for a period of three years.

The European Space Agency has requested a budget of 18.5 billion euros from all its members for 2023-2025, an unprecedented 25% increase compared to 2020-2025. 2022.

Joseph Eschbacher, the director of this agency, has reported: increasing the budget is necessary to stay competitive with the Americans and Chinese whose resources are increasing rapidly. . We should not repeat in space what we did in IT. We stopped investing 20 years ago, and because of this, we fell to the second category in this field.

The important point is that Europe lost access to Russia’s Soyuz rockets after Moscow’s attack on Ukraine, and the European Space Agency had to withdraw from the SpaceX rocket. American billionaire Elon Musk will use it to launch the “Euclid” space telescope into space.

This union is trying to advance the Ariane 6 project by putting aside the internal differences and compensate for the time delay in this field. The Ariane 6 rocket is a launch vehicle developed by the Ariane Group under the supervision of the European Space Agency. After completion of development, this rocket will become the newest member of the family of Ariane launch vehicles.

The motivation behind the development of the Ariane 6 missile is to replace it with the Ariane 5 missile at half the cost and to make it possible to double the number of launches every year.

China

China is one of the important space powers, whose actions have also had an increasing momentum in recent decades. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Organization (CASC) had targeted more than 60 launches by 2023, aiming to put more than 200 spacecraft into orbit.

Although this organization has not suffered any launch failures in the past year, but according to Chinese media, this organization has failed in the field of commercial launches into space. . According to these reports, commercial space launches accounted for 17 of the organization’s 67 launches, and only one launch, from startup Galactic Energy, failed in its mission.

China’s main launches in 2023 It included 16 Shenzhou missions and 17 crewed missions to the Tiangong space station, the launch of remote sensing assets into geostationary orbits, the launch of the country’s first commercial launchers, and the third flight of its secret experimental space plane.

The China Space Agency recorded a total of 222 launch attempts in 2023, eclipsing the previous record of 186 in 2022. Of course, China ranked second after the United States, which launched 116 launches in 2023.

The important point is that in China, the spatial strategy is so concentrated that although this method may stifle the dynamism to some extent, it helps in directing the flow of money and Investing in areas such as space, which requires constant capital injection, has been successful.

According to the report of reputable research institutes in the field of aerospace, China’s space capabilities have made significant progress in recent years. In 2003, it launched its first crewed spacecraft and became the third country to independently send humans into space.

In 2007, China demonstrated its ability to disrupt infrastructure by destroying one of its weather satellites using a lethal kinetic vehicle. successfully demonstrated space. The country’s achievements continued with the first successful landing on the far side of the moon in 2019 and the completion of the BeiDou satellite navigation system in 2020, providing global coverage with a level of accuracy comparable to the US Global Positioning System (GPS).

In addition, China has launched its own modular space station and is now developing plans for a permanent lunar base. These developments suggest that China is closing the gap with the United States in terms of outer space capabilities.

Many publications that have reported on the competition between the United States and China in space argue that China is emerging as a space superpower. Speed ​​is closing its gap with the United States, and America now faces its biggest space rival since the dawn of the space age, as China’s space programs pose military, economic and political challenges to the country.

Which countries performed important space missions in 2023?

In general, the main missions in space last year included the following.

1- The “Psyche” probe belonging to the American space agency “NASA” left the earth for one of the most unusual objects in the solar system (Asteroid Psyche). The cost of this spacecraft is estimated at 750 million dollars, and scientists say that the discoveries of this mission can help scientists investigate the nature of the earth and its history.

2- Starship launch of the most powerful human-made rocket into space

3- The historic landing of Chandrayaan 3 – Indian probe on the moon

4- The European Space Agency started the Jupiter icy moons probe mission called “JUICE” with the aim of studying the environment of this giant gas planet and its three moons

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5- Unsuccessful launch of 25Luna Russia

6- The Japanese SLIM spacecraft was also launched in September 2023 and settled on the surface of the moon some time later. But the occurrence of a problem in the solar cells of this spacecraft raised the possibility that its mission will end earlier than the planned time.

The Slim probe made Japan the fifth country to land on the moon.

Summary

Surveys show that out of 223 space launches in 2023, the United States with 109, China with 67 and Russia with 19 had the most launches, respectively. It shows the growing competition of these countries in the sky and space.

Perhaps just as interesting, India recorded 7 wickets last year. After withdrawing from its efforts after the launch in 2016, North Korea set a record last year with three launches, and Europe launched three launches from French Guiana and Japan one launch.

The important point is that not all launches are successful. According to media reports, out of 223 launches, 212 rockets were able to put their payloads into orbit. In these launches, America recorded 5 failures, China 1 and North Korea 2 failures, and Russia, Europe and India all succeeded in launching without failure.

Accordingly, 78 cases of spacecraft or probe launches were carried out by governments. 11 were conducted by commercial companies under contract with the host government and 134 were conducted by commercial companies for commercial clients, including foreign governments.

The important point is that around the world, Elon Musk’s “SpaceX” alone has 98 launches in the world. This statistic means that without SpaceX, the United States would have launched only 11 rockets instead of 109, and the American operations in space have somehow been monopolized by Elon Musk.

Another indicator of competition in the field of space is the launching of satellites into space by countries claiming power in this field. According to published reports, the United States successfully launched the largest number of satellites last year

Throw to programmed orbits. In this context, the United States with 2,234 cases, China, 213, Russia, 67, Europe, 253, India, 9, and North Korea, with one case, placed the highest number of satellites in their hypothetical orbits.

All in all, experts from specialized organizations in the field of space say that China’s competition with America in the field of space will become much more intense in the coming decade. Although the U.S. space ecosystem is now significantly larger, more diverse, and more dynamic than its Chinese counterpart, Beijing’s aggressive actions suggest that it is doing its best to catch up to, rather than surpass, America’s position in space. . A topic that seems not possible in the current situation.

According to reports, America now leads the world by a significant margin with the largest number of space agencies. Of the 1,613 active space organizations in 2022, 382 (23.68 percent) are based in the United States, while 130 (8.06 percent) are based in China.

In addition, the United States has more space agencies than China, Japan, Great Britain, Russia and France combined. A look at the budgets of the mentioned countries shows that America had the highest investment in space.

The media reported: the budget of the American space agency “NASA” in 2023 included 25.4 billion dollars, which is approximately 1.3 billion dollars more than the budget 2022 has increased by 5.6%.

The European Space Agency ESA announced that the organization’s 2023 budget is 7.08 billion euros and it is trying to increase this amount. China has announced that in its space program, it is trying to send the people of this country to the moon for tourist trips by 2030.

Although China has not released official statistics on its space programs, Euroconsult estimates that China will spend approximately $12 billion on its space program in 2022.
Despite the extensive competition among a small number of countries, reaching space is still difficult and remains a dream for many other countries in the world.