Chinese space program

China has one of the most active space programs in the world. With launch vehicles of the Long March rocket family and four spaceports (Jiuquan, Taiyuan, Xichang, Wenchang), China conducts the most or second most orbital launches each year. China's fleet of over 1,300 Earth orbit satellites serves communication, navigation, reconnaissance and scientific research. China Manned Space Program operates Tiangong, one of two active space stations alongside the International Space Station (ISS). China National Space Administration (CNSA) has achieved robotic rover, lander, and orbiter missions to the Moon and Mars.

From the 1950s, aided by the Soviet Union, development began on China's nuclear weapons, Dongfeng ballistic missiles, and Long March rockets, honored as the Two Bombs, One Satellite projects. Despite setbacks from the Cultural Revolution and Sino-Soviet split, China became the fifth country to independently launch a satellite, Dong Fang Hong 1, in 1970. China is one of three countries with a human spaceflight capability, via its Shenzhou craft. Adapted from Russia's Soyuz after a 1995 treaty, Shenzhou 5 carried the first Chinese astronaut in 2003. China commercially launched Western satellites from 1988, but failures, especially Intelsat 708, caused the US to embargo satellite export in 1998. After the US vetoed its joining the ISS, China began the Tiangong program, operating prototypes Tiangong-1 and -2 before the current Tiangong, the world's third modular space station, supplemented by the Tianzhou cargo ship.