Long-Range Missiles
Israel is believed to have aided Taiwan in building its Ching Feng (100 km/275 kg), a Lance-look-alike. This model was never deployed, but its development aided later work on the Sky Horse, a ballistic missile estimated to have a range/payload capability of 1,000 km/500 kg. Work on the Sky Horse apparently was abandoned in 1981. If it were developed and deployed in the future, the Sky Horse would put the eastern part of mainland China within striking distance.
In 1989, Taipei announced space launch plans and saying that it "should be able to launch an approximately 200-pound satellite within the next 5 years." This suggested that the Sky Horse might be resurrected as a space launch vehicle. However, progress in a space launch enterprise has not been evidenced.
Taiwan is trying to develop its own missiles with an offensive capability. The possibility is that Taiwan is developing a medium-range ballistic missile with a range that is less than or approaching one-thousand kilometers [about 600 to 700 miles]. This missile would be designed for what are called counter force purposes, which is to attack military sites on mainland China in the event of a conflict between China and Taiwan.
In late December 2003 a scientific space exploration rocket was launched from a base in southern Taiwan as part of the work of Taiwan's space program, according to an official from the National Science Council (NSC). The space exploration rocket, the third of its kind to be built by the military Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology (CIST), was launched in the evening from a CIST base located in Chiupeng, Pingtung County. The CIST builds and launches the rockets under a contract signed with the NSC Space Program Development Preparatory Office at a cost of NT$25 million (US$750,000) per unit. The launching of the horizontal rocket, whose range is not in excess of 300 kilometers, was mainly aimed at gaining better observation capabilities of the earth's ionosphere.
The first such rocket was successfully launched three years earlier, but it did not carry any research gear.
The second rocket of its kind did carry such equipment, but its launch 25 October 2001 failed. The rocket lifted off from the Chiupeng base in southern Taiwan, but the second stage of the rocket failed to ignite after the first stage shut down as planned. The rocket, which was going to study the upper atmosphere, reached an altitude of only 15 km before plummeting into the sea.
The second phase of Taiwan's space program will expand beyond developing satellites to building a scientific space exploration rocket. Earlier plans to develop a satellite launch vehicle were abandoned because of international missile anti-proliferation treaties, strong opposition from the United States, and other factors.
The first phase of Taiwan's National Long-Range Space Technology Development Plan comes to an end in 2006. The second phase of the space program, while upholding the spirit of not contravening international missile anti-proliferation treaties, will attempt to develop vertical and horizontal space exploration rockets with ranges not in excess of 300 km, to gain better observation capabilities of the earth's ionosphere.
On report in 2004 suggested that Taiwan had developed plans to produce 30 surface-to-surface ballistic missiles with a 2,000km range and 120 surface-to-surface ballistic missiles with a 1,000km-range, based on domestically produced missiles.
