It seems like China is set to outperform NASA at their own game. The aforementioned country currently has plans to build a new space telescope that would blow the Hubble out of the water. According to Zhang Yulin, the Deputy to the National People’s Congress, the field of view of this new telescope will be 300 times larger than the telescope created by NASA. An interesting thought to bring up, as well, is if Russia has any intention of following in the footsteps of China.
A LITTLE INFORMATION ON THE HUBBLE TELESCOPE
For those of you who are unaware, NASA launched their Hubble telescope in 1990. The official website for NASA tells us that it’s as large as a school bus, and travels around Earth at about 5 miles per second. To put that speed in perspective, that’s like driving a car from the East Coast of the US to the West Coast in only 10 minutes!
THE NEW TELESCOPE FROM CHINA
As previously mentioned, Yulin broke the news of the telescope that China was building. Yulin also mentioned, though, that the telescope would maintain a certain distance to orbit with the Tiangong, the modular space station from China. What this allows, Yulin then says, is the ability for repairs to be made in orbit by astronauts. This is due to the fact that the telescope will be able to dock to the space station. This completely solves the problem that NASA has been experiencing with the Hubble, as they had to send up astronauts to repair it.
RUSSIA IS NO STRANGER WITH SPACE
So, will Russia follow in the footsteps of China? It would be no surprise because Russia has had a history in space. Up until 2001, Russia owned what was known as Mir. As a matter of fact, up until the International Space Station in 2001, it was actually the largest artificial satellite in orbit. However, that was 15 years ago so who knows if they would be willing to partake in something like that again.
