{"id":104968,"date":"2025-01-30T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/la-chine-sinteresse-au-nucleaire-pour-ses-voyages-spatiaux\/"},"modified":"2025-04-04T15:08:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T13:08:08","slug":"la-chine-sinteresse-au-nucleaire-pour-ses-voyages-spatiaux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/la-chine-sinteresse-au-nucleaire-pour-ses-voyages-spatiaux\/","title":{"rendered":"China turns to nuclear power for space travel"},"content":{"rendered":"
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China recently revealed its interest in nuclear power for future manned missions to the solar system. Indeed, for its future manned expeditions far from Earth, Beijing is studying the use of the atom to power electric engine (power generation) or to operate nuclear thermal engine. Several technical articles have recently appeared in this highly sensitive field.<\/h6>\n\n\n<\/div>\n
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Solar panels are very efficient in the Earth-Moon environment, but their power decreases very quickly the further you are from the Sun. For this reason, nuclear reactors would make it possible to overcome this problem and power an interplanetary spacecraft and possibly its propulsion. In addition, for human spaceflights, nuclear thermal propulsion is the only option today that can reduce the duration of the journey between planets and therefore reduce the exposure of crews to radiation.<\/p>\n

While the United States is talking more and more about manned interplanetary flights to Mars \u2014 SpaceX\u2019s long-term vision \u2014 China seems to be following suit, even though the Chinese manned lunar programme has not yet entered its active phase. China knows that the real competition in the 21st<\/sup> century will not be the Moon \u2014 it was already conquered in 1969 (Apollo-11) \u2014 but the planet Mars. What\u2019s more, SpaceX boss Elon Musk is constantly talking about colonising the Red Planet with his giant Starship launchers currently being tested. For all these reasons, the Middle Kingdom has embarked on a series of in-depth studies and exploratory developments with a view to reaching the fourth planet. And, according to Beijing, this objective requires the use of nuclear technologies.<\/p>\n

Current studies focus on electronuclear propulsion for cargo transport to Mars and nuclear thermal propulsion for manned interplanetary flight. In 2024, this will be the most efficient way of completing the journey between Earth and the fourth planet as quickly as possible, without exposing crews to too much radiation. In the United States, the use of this type of propulsion is strongly recommended by the Academy of Sciences for the same reasons.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n

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\n Voir aussi<\/span>\n
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\n \n \"\"<\/a>\n <\/span>\n \n Space conquest: China and India in the running<\/a>\n \n \n \n <\/use>\n<\/svg>\n <\/a>\n <\/span>\n
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19 November 2024<\/div>\n COU\u00c9 Philippe<\/a>\n
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\n Concept of an interplanetary cargo ship with electronuclear propulsion (visible on the left in the drawing)\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n

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The large panels attached to the beam are radiators.
\n\u00a9 Philippe Cou\u00e9<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n\n

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\n Concept of a manned spacecraft for travel between Earth and Mars\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n

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The three nuclear thermal engines are visible on the left.
\n\u00a9 Philippe Cou\u00e9<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n\n

While most of the information in this note comes from technical articles indicating that a great deal of thought is being given to space nuclear power, there have recently been reports of prototypes being tested, such as a retractable space nuclear fission reactor. It would be used to power xenon electric motors (electronuclear propulsion) and its promoters claim that it would enable the journey to Mars to be completed in three months (instead of the six usually envisaged). The new reactor, described in an article published in the peer-reviewed Chinese journal Scientia Sinica Technologica<\/em><\/a>, has reportedly undergone several initial tests on the ground.[1]<\/a><\/sup> These tests are said to have confirmed that key technological obstacles have been overcome to enable the reactor to be sent into space.<\/p>\n

Today, China has all the scientific and technical infrastructure needed to tackle this new sector of astronautics with confidence. In any case, it will be difficult to identify any assistance from a third country to speed up the advent of space nuclear power in China. On this subject, we can simply refer to a brief report in the Chinese media some twenty years ago, which mentioned \u201cstrategic\u201d agreements with Russia concerning this sector.<\/p>\n

Moreover, China\u2019s interest in nuclear space was inevitable, given the strategic parity that now seems to guide a number of the Middle Kingdom\u2019s space activities. A few years ago, the United States reactivated its nuclear space programme, of which the DRACO project <\/a>(DRACO: Demonstrator Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations, developed by DARPA (the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency) is the most emblematic. Based on the logic of strategic catch-up mentioned above, it is likely that China will develop at least one nuclear propulsion demonstrator equivalent to that proposed for DRACO.<\/p>\n\n

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This illustration is unique in that it is the first photograph of a Chinese test bench for nuclear technologies intended for manned interplanetary flight. Chinese Academy of Sciences photo published in<\/em> Chenin Stephen, \u201cStarship Rival: Chinese Scientists Build Prototype Engine for Nuclear-powered Spaceship to Mars<\/a>\u201d, South China Morning Post, <\/em>19 March 2024.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n\n

——- <\/span>
Source: <\/em>this note is taken from the Lettre confidentielle Asie21-Futuribles, <\/em>no. 189, December 2024.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2013 <\/span>
N.B.:<\/em> this article has been translated from French by DeepL, and revised by the author and Futuribles.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

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    The author prefers not to publish the references of the articles on which he relies, but can be reached through the editorial team if you have any queries (Editor\u2019s note). \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    China recently revealed its interest in nuclear power for future manned missions to the solar system. Indeed, for its future manned expeditions far from Earth, Beijing is studying the use of the atom to power electric engine (power generation) or to operate nuclear thermal engine. Several technical articles have recently appeared in this highly sensitive … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":101584,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"both","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":301,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[210],"keyword":[953,1306,957,1265,1044],"class_list":["post-104968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newswatch","tag-science-et-technique-en","keyword-chine-en","keyword-technologie-de-pointe-en","keyword-recherche-et-developpement-en","keyword-sciences-de-l-espace-en","keyword-techniques-spatiales-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104968"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104983,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104968\/revisions\/104983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104968"},{"taxonomy":"keyword","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyword?post=104968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}