07 November 2019
China plans to launch a recoverable satellite that will carry 240 kg of of seeds and plants, as well as other forms of life such as bacteria into space. The main goal is to see if during the 2 weeks of flight, seed mutations take place in the space environment that in the consequence might lead to better crops. Scientists would combine other biological technology such as genetic sequencing, molecular labelling and gene editing to help improve the efficiency of new crop species. The second most widely used mutant wheat variety in China, Luyuan 502, had been developed using space-induced mutation breeding, and had a yield 11 per cent higher than the traditional variety.
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08 November 2019
The Chinese Academy of Sciences confirmed that the China Remote Sensing Satellite Ground Station has received 616.6 GB of data from the newly launched Earth observation satellite Gaofen 7. The satellite has adopted variable coding and modulation technology, effectively improving its downlink transmission efficiency of satellite data. Additionally, the China Remote Sensing Satellite Ground Station also developed new ground data receiving devices for adaptive, fully automatic and reliable reception of multiple satellite data.
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07 November 2019
China will share data from its Gaofen (GF) satellites free to the public on the website www.cnsageo.com, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced at a meeting of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) in Canberra, Australia. The China High-resolution Earth Observation System aims to build up an observation system based on satellites, aircraft and ground systems. Several satellites including the GF-1 and GF-6 have been launched under the system’s framework. Through the website, people can access three kinds of GF 16-meter data: a global coverage map generated with archived data, historical archived data, and 16-meter data updated daily, according to CNSA.
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06 November 2019
Chinese space engineers are tackling the key technologies needed to explore a near-Earth asteroid and a main-belt comet with one space probe. The proposed mission is to send a probe around an asteroid named 2016HO3 and then land on it to collect samples, Huang Jiangchuan, a researcher from the China Academy of Space Technology, recently presented at the 1st China Space Science Assembly in Xiamen, east China's Fujian Province. The probe will then fly back to the proximity of Earth, and release a capsule to return the samples. After that, the probe will continue its journey. With the assistance of the gravity of Earth and Mars, it will finally arrive at the main asteroid belt and orbit comet 133P, Huang said.
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