China is Building Its Own James Webb Space Telescope

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of the China Space Station Telescope called Xuntian. (Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics)

Just as we have competition with China for the next human to visit the Moon, we now have competition for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

China has stated it plans to launch the China Space Station Telescope (CSST) in 2026, which should be as powerful as the JWST while having the extra benefit of remaining in Earth orbit. As a result, when compared to the JWST, the CSST will be easier to maintain as well as upgrade.

A Chinese paper on the new telescope noted the following regarding its potential:

It can simultaneously perform multi-band imaging and slitless spectroscopic wide- and deep-field surveys in ten years and an ultra-deep field (UDF) survey in two years, which are suitable for cosmological studies. Here we review several CSST cosmological probes, such as weak gravitational lensing, two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) galaxy clustering, galaxy cluster abundance, cosmic void, Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), and baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAO), and explore their capabilities and prospects in discovering new physics and opportunities in cosmology. We find that CSST will measure the matter distribution from small to large scales and the expansion history of the Universe with extremely high accuracy, which can provide percent-level stringent constraints on the property of dark energy and dark matter and precisely test the theories of gravity.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with a little competition. Let’s just hope NASA can get back on track after its latest budget problems as well as its current unstructured reorganization under the new White House. While the agency has other powerful telescopes under development, it doesn’t take much to throw things out of balance.