The Heavenly Palace

On November 20th, 1998, low earth orbit became the stage for a historic arrival—a new and enduring presence that would soon emerge as the focal point of human innovation: the International Space Station (ISS). At the time, the space laboratory only consisted of 2 modules, the Russian Zarya and US Unity modules with a large 15 year commissioned window of operation. However, over the course of 30 missions spanning a decade, the ISS grew to a staggering 16 module spacecraft, spanning the width of an American football field. Excluding the Russian Mir Station, operational from 1998-2001, this was humanity’s only permanent residence beyond the Kármán line. An extraordinary opportunity for long-duration crewed missions to learn about human physiology in microgravity, hosted experiments, and importantly, an ironclad link in democratic affairs between the involved nations. Despite the immense challenge of maintaining the most complex and expensive experiment in human history amongst constant political strife, the 15 involved nations led by the US, collectively continue to ensure its success.

In the decade following the installation of the first segment, the US completed 27 crewed expeditions to the ISS, 37 visits from the US Space Shuttle Program, and over 100 ISS dedicated Russian launch vehicles. The orbital space laboratory is a flagship of space technology and everybody wants a piece, including China. However, due to high domestic concerns of association between the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) all collaboration at-large between the U.S. and China was essentially blocked following the passage of the Wolf Amendment in 2011. And by association, for China, access to the ISS is prohibited.

With a debut in 1993, the Chinese Manned Space Agency (CMSA) was founded with one clear intention, to grow China’s influence in space. While negligibly small for their first decade, their achievements between 2003-2011 laid the foundation for some initial merit to the program’s legitimacy. This included several human spaceflight missions (Shenzhou Program), a spacewalk, the development of the Long March 2F Rocket, and notably the first iteration of a Chinese space station, Tiangong-1.?

Translated to “Heavenly Palace” or “Palace in the Sky, “ Tiangong-1 was China’s first crack at a permanent installation in low earth orbit, which in its inaugural year of 2011 became a necessity for the nation. Tiangong-1 orbited Earth from 2011-2018 with several visiting Chinese vehicles and 2 crewed missions until the CMSA conceded to loss of contact with the station in 2016. Shortly after, Tiangong-2, its successor, orbited between 2015-2019 after a controlled reentry. Although short-lived, that was the intention. The lessons learned from the first two iterations were essential for the following and final rendition.

On April 29th, 2021, the Tiangong Space Station (TSS for the sake of simplicity) in the form of its first module, Tianhe, reached orbit, and is there to stay. Shortly after in July and October of 2022, the station welcomed two additional modules; the Wentian and Mengtian. Although considerably different from the ISS, the TSS is still considered to be a 3rd generation station, defined by its modularity, permanency and in-orbit assembly capabilities.

The first module, Tianhe, functions as life support, GNC (guidance, navigation, and control), and living quarters for its 3 crew members. Wentian is a laboratory module containing additional avionics, propulsion, 3 additional living quarters, as well as an airlock for EVA activities with a focus on life science. Finally, the Mengtian module is also research focused with compartments for both pressurized and vacuum exposed hosted payloads (very similar to the Japanese Experiment Module on ISS), as well as an additional airlock. With that being said, TSS is more than well enough equipped to perform science, host long-duration crews and now contain capabilities that may soon surpass those of the ISS. Recently, the CNSA publicly shared the next chapter of Tiangong, consisting of doubling its modules, adding a robotic arm, and launching a large space survey telescope dubbed “Zuntian” with an FOV 300x wider than Hubble and the ability to periodically dock with the station, a capability yet to be demonstrated by any government space agency.

When thinking through the presence of a fully functioning modular station, controlled by China, the knee-jerk reaction is to compare it to the ISS, however it is not that simple. The ISS is over six times the size and twice the crew capacity, however, the orbiting laboratory is ten times as old. Technology has changed exponentially since 1998, and frequent upgrades to ISS has transformed the pressurized volume into a jungle of cables and instruments to compensate for outdated hardware. While Tiangong may resemble a Star Trek-esque interior now, cable-management has since not gotten any easier in microgravity and will likely share the same fate as time progresses. While the ISS still is the dominant space station in low Earth orbit (LEO), Tiangong has certainly utilized the successes of ISS and learned from its shortcomings, thus making the two impossible to view as complements.?

One of the proven successes is the encouragement of commercial involvement. CNSA has recently called for commercial resupply proposals, similar to those granted to Northrop Grumman, SpaceX, and Boeing for ISS. International experiments from 17 countries ranging from gamma-ray polarimetry, to cancer research have been proposed for the CNSA with 42 submissions, 9 of which were accepted. Beyond technological partnership, Tiangong has welcomed private astronauts and non-state owned enterprises to participate, with Gui Haichao joining the 3rd long-duration crew as the first non-PLA enlisted astronaut to board Tiangong.

CMSA has always had clear intentions; improve the global perception of China in space. The Department of Air Force’s China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI) even released this statement in August 2023: “The People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA’s) intention to allow civilian astronauts and nonstate-owned enterprise (SOE) companies to participate in the Chinese Space Station (CSS) are two trends that will probably change the global image of the Chinese space program.”

Dating back to 1955, it was always just the US and Russia, no other nation was close. Curiously we are living in the midst of a massive paradigm shift in the power dynamic of space. Russia, while still supporting the ISS and several other exploration projects, has suffered tremendous budgetary challenges, obsolete infrastructure, and chronic corruption which has pushed the nation into a secondary role. Most recently, the failure of the Luna 25 certainly did not recover the lost authority of the struggling space agency. Alternatively countries such as India, Australia, and Canada have risen considerably in positionality, not necessarily as leaders, but essential partners. Predictably, China now has a strong case to be considered the 2nd largest space power on Earth with healthy financial backing and strong interest in success from Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The Chinese president was quoted in June 2022, stating “To explore the vast cosmos, develop the space industry and build China into a space power is our eternal dream.”

Evaluation of this objective is certainly dependent on the nation. In January 2023, NASA Administrator and former astronaut, Bill Nelson said “It is a fact: we’re in a space race,” which? may be hyperbolic, however, the CNSA’s ascendancy cannot be ignored, especially when considering its second-order impact to an already uncompromising international political landscape. Space capability does not only complement a nation’s military maturity but invokes an explicit promotion in status. This upgrade in status runs parallel with an increase in power and influence not exclusive to those within the CCP but internationally. Predictably, this is perfectly in alignment with the CCP’s five-year plan of, simply stated, rise in global influence.

From a legal perspective, what better sector to fixate on than space. Largely governed by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (OST), space is very limited in terms of international law, leaving plenty of room for new precedent or legal regime for China. Who will set the industry standard for nominal operating procedures on future uncharted space missions? Who will certify these spacecraft and with what language? While many of these questions are answered for LEO application, future endeavors such as lunar activity and beyond remain open.

For at least the next 6 years, we live in quite a unique time where the orbital dance of ISS and Tiangong can be seen from Earth with the naked eye. Yet even more intriguing is the unseen: a profound shift in determining who takes the initiative in exploring the unexplored. We are entrenched in an international space renaissance with global launch frequency skyrocketing (223 launches in 2023) right alongside the number of countries inaugurating government space agencies (17 new agencies since 2014). The International Space Station, an icon of global collaboration, with certain exclusions, and Tiangong, a product of exclusion and careful learning, are objectively just space laboratories. However, hardware aside, these two engineering marvels represent a window into the past and a lightly treaded prediction of the future for humanity’s hunger for the final frontier.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely my own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any organization with which I am affiliated.