Russia and China on Tuesday unveiled plans for a joint lunar space station, as Moscow seeks to recapture the glory of the Soviet Union’s space pioneering days and Beijing gears up its own extraterrestrial ambitions.
Moscow, once at the forefront of space travel, has been eclipsed by Beijing and Washington, which have both clocked major wins in space exploration and research in recent years.
The Russian space agency Roscosmos said in a statement that it had signed an agreement with the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) to develop a “complex of experimental research facilities created on the surface and/or in the orbit of the moon.”
The CNSA said that the project was “open to all interested countries and international partners” in what experts said would be China’s biggest international space cooperation project to date.
Roscosmos Director-General Dmitry Rogozin wrote on Twitter that he had invited CNSA Director Zhang Kejian (張克儉) to the launch of Russia’s first modern lunar lander, Luna 25, scheduled for Oct. 1 — the first lunar lander to be launched by Russia since 1976.
Moscow and Washington are also collaborating in the space sector, but Russia did not sign the US-led Artemis Accord last year for countries that want to participate in a lunar exploration scheme spearheaded by NASA.
Under the Artemis program announced during the tenure of former US president Donald Trump, NASA plans to land the first woman and the next man on the moon by 2024.
In another blow to Russia’s space reputation, Roscosmos last year lost its monopoly for crewed flights to the International Space Station after the first successful mission of the US company SpaceX.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has become a key player in the modern space race and has announced plans to fly several members of the public to the moon in 2023 on a trip bankrolled by a Japanese millionaire.
A SpaceX Starship prototype exploded after landing in Texas in March, after climbing to an altitude of 10km.
The test flight was part of the company’s ambitious project to take people to Mars.
Philippine vlogger Rosanel Demasudlay holds a heart-shaped “virginity soap” bar in front of the camera and assures her hundreds of YouTube followers that it can be safely used to “tighten” their vaginas. The video is part of a barrage of bogus and harmful medical posts on social media platforms where Filipinos rank among the world’s heaviest users. Even before COVID-19 pandemic restrictions confined people to their homes and left them fearful of seeing a doctor, many in the Philippines sought remedies online because they were cheaper and easier to access. During the pandemic, the Agence France-Presse’s (AFP) Fact Check team saw an explosion
BACKING THE APPLICATION: Ankara’s move is expected to enable Helsinki to join the alliance, while the Turkish president is still opposed to backing Sweden’s application Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday ended months of diplomatically charged delays and asked the Turkish parliament to back Finland’s bid to join NATO. A simultaneous decision by fellow holdout Hungary to schedule a Finnish ratification vote for March 27 means the US-led defense alliance would likely grow to 31 nations within a few months. NATO’s expansion into a country with a 1,340km border with Russia would double the length of the bloc’s frontier with its Cold War-era foe. Finland had initially aimed to join together with fellow NATO aspirant Sweden, which is facing a litany of disputes with Turkey that
LEADERS MEET: Australia’s Anthony Albanese met Fiji’s Sitiveni Rabuka to reiterate that the submarines would not carry nuclear weapons, amid unease over the plan A former Australian prime minister yesterday rubbished the country’s landmark nuclear-powered submarine deal, saying that it unnecessarily targeted China and could have “deadly consequences.” Australia on Monday announced that it would buy up to five US submarines in an ambitious effort to bulk up Western muscle in the face of a rising China. With the help of the US and UK, Australia is also embarking on a 30-year plan to build its own fleet of nuclear-powered submarines. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said that the deal was the country’s biggest-ever military upgrade, while US President Joe Biden said it would ensure that the
WHO WINS? Chinese projects do not ultimately reduce local unemployment as they use Chinese labor, while Russia’s Wagner group has been accused of rights abuses in Africa China and Russia are bolstering their presence in Africa to tap its rich natural resources, analysts say, amid grave warnings from UN agencies that the world’s poorest countries face crippling debts. “One out of every three major infrastructure projects in Africa is built by Chinese state-owned enterprises, and one out of every five is financed by a Chinese policy bank,” said Paul Nantulya, a research associate at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, an academic institution within the US Department of Defense. Russia, a key arms exporter to Africa, is also making forays into the continent, including through mining projects granted to
RSS