………. For all its value as a new addition to the planet's hopes for seeking out new forms of life and expanding the horizons of the known - the Shenzhou program is still quite solidly embedded in the Chinese military system, experts say. Yang was sent off by a military official, and greeted upon return by a military official. Indeed, the Shenzhou V recovery took place on the anniversary of China first successful nuclear weapons test in 1964, a symbol not lost on some Chinese commentators.
In the aftermath of the US led wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the Chinese military has taken note of US satellite systems that coordinate attacks. Sources say it is US satellites that most concern the Chinese. As Johnson-Freese put it in a paper delivered Friday at Harvard, "The Chinese, while advocating a treaty to ban space weapons, have also made no bones about working on anti-satellite technology. Kinetic energy weapons, jammers, parasite satellites that can surreptitiously attach themselves to other satellites, and high-powered ground-based lasers [have] all been on the Chinese menu of options being pursued. The Chinese are also interested in navigation satellites, which can enhance missile targeting capabilities."***
The second military payload flown aboard Shenzhou is an imaging reconnaissance package. This comprises two cameras with an aperture of 500-600 millimeters. According to Mike Wade, curator of Encyclopedia Astronautica, the use of two different cameras indicates a hyper-spectral, multi-resolution, combination mapping/close-look system, giving a ground resolution of as much as 1.6 meters. From this it can be deduced that the military missions of future Chinese manned space flights are likely to be military imaging reconnaissance. If the pattern of earlier Shenzhou flights is followed, crew will be tasked to identify targets in a controlled orbit lasting six to seven days. This coincides with the duration of the next manned flight, which has been planned for six days.
The above capabilities are underscored by the assertions of the People's Daily that the spacecraft can carry out missions of reconnaissance and surveillance better and allow the military to deploy, repair and assemble military satellites that could monitor and control military forces on Earth. This raises the prospects that the future Chinese manned space station, a model of which was shown at Hannover Expo 2000, under Project 921-2, which could be deployed as early as the turn of the decade, will have multiple military missions. A future space station could enable launching and repairing of military satellites, and cue and guide future PLA precision-guided weapons such as terminally guided ballistic missiles and new land attack cruise missiles. China in addition has planned to launch four high-resolution electro-optical satellites and four cloud-penetrating radar satellites by 2006. These satellites will allow twice-daily monitoring of any target on Earth.
Two additional dimensions of the Chinese space and satellite program merit close attention. China's second space priority revolves around developing a solid-fuel, four-stage satellite-launching vehicle (SLV). On September 16, China tested an indigenously developed four-stage, solid-fuel SLV, the Kaitouzhe-1. KT-1 is based on a solid-fuel, long-range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile. The SLV program offers both civilian and military benefits in terms of accelerating the pace and capability to launch micro-satellites while reducing the cost of launches. KT-1 can reduce the launch time from days to just 16 hours, much faster than any liquid-fuel rocket. However, the most significant impact of this capability will be the country's ability to build, rapidly deploy and replace small communications, imaging and positioning satellites - vital elements of any modern and technologically advanced military. This technology can also be utilized to launch interceptors in the anticipated path of target satellite by using micro and nano-satellites as effective interceptors.***