As China tries to catch up to the United States and Russia, its regional neighbors are fast on its heels.
China's first manned spacecraft entered orbit in October 2003, making China the first Asian nation and the third after Soviet Union/Russia and the United States in the world to send a human into space independently.
India expects to demonstrate independent human spaceflight by 2015,[5] and both Iran and Japan have plans for independent manned spaceflights around the year 2020.
While the achievements of space programs run by main Asian space players China, India and Japan are modest in comparison to the milestones set by the United States and the former Soviet Union in the first space races,
The motivations behind a new space race include national pride, national security and commercial development.
China, India, Japan, Iran, Turkey have dual-purpose space programs - military and civilian. Because of external threats Israel, North Korea and the Republic of China (Taiwan) concentrate mainly on military space applications. The programs of South Korea, Malaysia and Thailand are mainly civilian. Indonesia, while initially focusing primarily on civil applications has begun moving into the dual-purpose arena following the development of Ballistic Missile capabilities in 2008.
The Indian Space Program was mainly based on developing civilian space applications, but since the launch of its Defence Surveillance Satellite, Radar Imaging Satellite (RISAT-2) and Spy Satellites in 2009 has transformed into a dual-purpose space program.
Some examples: In January 2007 China became the first Asian military-space power to send an anti-satellite missile into orbit to destroy an aging Chinese Feng Yun 1C in polar orbit weather satellite[10]. As conterpart, month later, Japan's space agency (JAXA) has launched an experimental communications satellite designed to enable super high-speed data transmission in remote areas which would make Japan as high-tech space leader.[10] After successful achievement of geostationary technology, India has launched its first Chandrayaan-1 Moon mission.[11] First Korean astronaut Yi So-yeon spent 11 days aboard the International Space Station in April 2008.
Apart from national pride, there are also commercial motivations. According to a report by the Space Frontier Foundation released in 2006, the "space economy" is estimated to be worth about $180 billion, with more than 60 percent of space-related economic activity coming from commercial goods and services. Now China and India widely proposes the commercial launch service.
