Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Spot Mr. Sulu…oh wait, he was Japanese…

But these guys are Chinese…this just ain’t right.

China will launch a record number of spacecraft this year, state media reported Tuesday, amid a rise in tensions among world powers over the militarisation of space.

China plans to send up more than 10 missions this year, said Yang Baohua, head of the China Academy of Space Technology, according to the China Daily.

“China’s space technology has entered a new stage. The design and manufacture of satellites takes less time, and homemade satellites are more reliable and have a longer lifespan,” Yang said.

China has launched an average of eight spacecraft in the past two years, according to the report.

The missions this year will include two Shenzhou VII spaceships — one of which will feature the country’s first spacewalk — two environmental satellites and a communications satellite for Venezuela.

The news comes amid rising tensions between Russia, China and the United States over the militarisation of space.

China and Russia have expressed concerns about a US plan to shoot down what officials in Washington say is a crippled spy satellite, with that event to take place potentially as early as this week.

Russia’s defence ministry has said it fears the US plan is a veiled weapons test and represents an “attempt to move the arms race into space”, while Washington has insisted it is merely trying to prevent it hitting Earth.

The United States, meanwhile, remains concerned over China’s own satellite destruction effort in January last year.

China used a ballistic missile to intercept and destroy one of its own ageing weather satellites in low Earth orbit, becoming only the third nation after the United States and the former Soviet Union to do so.

Adding to the tensions, Russia and China last week unveiled plans for a new treaty banning the deployment of any weapons in space, but the United States rejected the move as “impossible”.

Washington is currently negotiating with Warsaw and Prague on the possible installation of 10 interceptor missile sites in Poland by 2012 and associated radar stations in the Czech Republic, as part of a missile shield.

(AP)