主播大秀

China's Belt and Road Initiative stretches physically with infrastructure projects across the globe, but there is one initiative that is the most ambitious yet; The Space Silk Road is beginning to carve out a unique position for China. The space race is heating up with new entrants like India and private companies like SpaceX, but it鈥檚 the Chinese who are set to dominate by 2045. And central to the Space Silk Road? A controversial station in Patagonia, Argentina. The Espacio Lejano Ground Station has a powerful 16-story antenna, with an 8-foot barbed wire fence that surrounds the entire compound. With other facilities in countries from Bolivia to Peru, do China's space ambitions cross the known world and aim for intergalactic exploration, rare mineral discovery and potential domination in space?

Landing on the far side of the moon in 2019 and again in 2024 have marked a key milestone in China鈥檚 push to become a dominant space power. And with plans to land astronauts on the moon by 2030 and build a research base on its south pole, China鈥檚 ambitions in our solar system have been gaining momentum.

Katy Watson asks astronomers, space engineers and Argentinian residents, how is President Xi's Space Silk Road impacting their universe?

Producer: Pete Shevlin
Executive Producer: Monica Whitlock

A C60 Media production for the 主播大秀 World Service.