Chinese Robotic Satellite Docking

[Sampanviking]

This is hardly an area I can claim any expertise, but I read the article and was fascinated by it

China’s Secret Satellite Rendezvous ‘Suggestive of a Military Program’ | Danger Room | Wired.com

China has apparently conducted a t least one secret satellite docking manoeuvre using an entirely autonomous robotic docking system.

Is this a significant development? are the authors right to point to possible sinister undertones?
How cutting edge is such an ability? Is the event likely to be true even?

 

[Neutral Zone]

It's an impressive technical achievement for sure and this capability can be used in both China's civilian and military space programmes. It is very difficult to do given the high orbital speeds of the satellites, so it shows just how good China's space technology is getting.

The article is a bit alarmist in tone but there's no doubt that this is a big advance for China.

 

[jeffb]

Its not really that technically hard to do, space is a very clean environment for robots to operate given that practically everything of interests can easily be mapped and tracked. Speed of the objects is almost a non-issue, its just part of the equation. Its very easy to navigate by the stars and various other means. Space would probably be the easiest place to design and operate fully autonomous robots.

I'm pretty sure this is not a first either as the ISS has been resupplied by autonomous vehicles for a while now.

The only real news is perhaps that China is catching up to the west, which is really no surprise at all considering the investment they are making.

 

[HKSDU]

what do mean catching up with the west? can spain, italy, greece, germany, canada (few examples, but not all) send man up to space? No. When people say China is not advance as the Western forces...it angers me on how dumb this sounds. Alot of those "Western nations" are no where near the level as where the Chinese are at now. Lot of them are less capable and require on buying from other nations, as they can't produce it themselves

 

[jeffb]

what do mean catching up with the west? can spain, italy, greece, germany, canada (few examples, but not all) send man up to space? No. When people say China is not advance as the Western forces...it angers me on how dumb this sounds. Alot of those "Western nations" are no where near the level as where the Chinese are at now. Lot of them are less capable and require on buying from other nations, as they can't produce it themselves

Its just a figure of speech, nothing to get upset about. It was more a reflection of the inspiration for the author of the article in the OP.

Actually all of those "western nations" you mentioned are involved in the ESA, the ability to launch a man into space is not really a good way to measure how advanced a space program is as its always going to be more cost efficient and have no impact on missions launching unmanned vehicles. But I'm not really interested in getting into a pissing match over space programs here.