Stories from the New Silk Road: Space

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. The space race is heating up with new entrants like India and private companies like SpaceX, but it is the Chinese who are set to dominate by 2045.

Central to the Space Silk Road is a controversial station in Patagonia, Argentina. The Espacio Lejano Ground Station has a powerful 16-story antenna, with an 8ft barbed wire fence that surrounds the entire compound. With other facilities in countries from Bolivia to Peru, do China's space ambitions aim for intergalactic exploration, rare mineral discovery and potential domination in space?

With plans to land astronauts on the moon by 2030 and build a research base on its south pole, China’s ambitions in our solar system have been gaining momentum. Katy Watson asks astronomers, space engineers and Argentinian residents, how President Xi's Space Silk Road is impacting their universe.

Producer: Pete Shevlin
Executive producer: Monica Whitlock
A C60 Media production for BBC World Service

(Photo: Espacio Lejano Ground Station. Credit: Pete Shevlin)