China Wants More in Space Market; Moving Towards Hegemony

China is really keen to boost its share of the global commercial space-launching business, with the target of owning 15 percent of the market by 2020.

Deputy head of China's Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology Liang Xiaohong told Xinhua News Agency that to achieve this goal, the country plans to build strategic alliances with major launch service providers and satellite manufacturers, and to develop its own technology.

China currently owns only 3 percent of the market but it hopes to become a major player in space in the near future. According to Liang, China's first solid-fuel rocket will be ready to make its first flight by 2016.

Chinese rockets' venture has been overshadowed by the achievements of rival Japanese and Indian aerospace industries, as well as private aerospace enterprises from Europe and the US in cost-efficiency advantage, Liang explained.

Russia continues to maintain the world champion in the space launch market, according to Russian federal space agency Roscosmos. Company head Vladimir Popovkin said that Russia conducted 24 space launches in 2012, sending 33 vehicles into space, accounting for 38 percent of all launches worldwide.

China has several types of 'Long March' rockets for use in commercial launches, all of which now mainly burn liquid fuel that must be pumped in just prior to launch, according to AP.

"The development of the Long March 11 will greatly improve China's capabilities to rapidly enter space and meet the emergency launching demand in case of disasters and emergencies," Xinhua quoted Liang as saying.

Earlier this week, China's space programme unveiled plans to send three astronauts to its orbiting space station this summer as part of preparations to establish an even larger permanent presence above Earth.

The Shenzhou 10 spacecraft, which will carry one female astronaut, will spend two weeks aboard the Tiangong 1 space station, during which time a team of astronauts will conduct a variety of experiments. This will be China's second manned docking of two spacecraft in orbit.

The station will be replaced around 2020 with a permanent one weighing about 60 tons, slightly smaller than NASA's Skylab of the 1970s, and about one-sixth the size of the 16-nation International Space Station, according to AP.

United States Radar to Visit Japan

North Korea has got the US, South Korea and Japan on their toes with the last rocket launch. This has made the US to concentrate more on the events going on around the region.

The US is planning to install an early-warning radar system at a coastal base near the Japanese city of Kyoto to bolster its defences against the North Korean missile threat, reports in the Japanese media claim.

It’ll be the second X-band radar system to be installed in Japan, with another one already operating in northern Aomori prefecture. The location was selected as military experts believe that a North Korean missile targeting Guam or Hawaii would most likely fly over western or central parts of Japan.

Ahmadinejad to be the first Iranian Astronaut

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said he is ready to take the risk of becoming the first human being sent into space by Iran, national media reports.

"I'm ready to be the first Iranian to sacrifice myself for our country's scientists," the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying on the sidelines of an exhibition of space achievements in Tehran on Monday.

Iran said it sent a monkey into space, describing the launch as a successful step towards Tehran's plan to send an astronaut into space within the next five to six years. The monkey named "Pishgam", which means pioneer in Farsi, reportedly travelled 120km and safely returned to Earth.

The launch added to Western concerns about Iran's space programme because the same rocket technology could potentially be used to deliver a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile.

In 2010, Iran said it launched an Explorer rocket into space carrying a mouse, a turtle and worms.

Iran's space officials say Iran will launch a bigger rocket carrying a larger animal to obtain greater safety assurances before sending a man into space.

Space tourist Anousheh Ansari was the first Iranian to make a journey into space aboard a Soyuz TMA-9 capsule from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, in 2006. The 40-year-old telecommunications entrepreneur paid a reported $20m for a space station visit.