China is showing off its plans to become the leading space power. A centerpiece project, Beidou 2, began in January 2015. 35 satellites will form the next generation platforms for the Compass satellite navigation system that China is deploying into geosynchronous and medium earth orbit.
While its American counterpart, GPS, is a transmit only system, Beidou users can use the satellite navigation system to send limited messages. Beidou 2 would provide Chinese missiles and robots with high accuracy, as well as giving Chinese soldiers a limited but universal coverage for communications.
China is finally setting up a Space Debris Monitoring and Application Center to track space debris and issue warnings to Chinese spacecraft; there were 30 near misses in 2014 for Chinese space assets alone. China hopes to eventually take a role in cleaning up the 500,000 large pieces of space debris, and the 100 million smaller ones.
China’s space program, once it receives new technology like the LM-5 heavy rocket and electrical satellite propulsion, will aim for interplanetary missions in the 2020, including possible probes sent to Mars, Venus, asteroids, near solar observation and Jupiter.