25 March 2019
Monday 25 March, at the Elysée Palace in the presence of Presidents Emmanuel Macron and Xi Jinping, CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall and CNSA Vice-Administrator Zhang Jianhua signed an agreement on future space cooperation between the two nations. In the domain of exploration, China will fly French experiments on its Chang’e 6 mission to return samples from the Moon in 2023-2024. With regard to climate action, the two agencies have started work on their next joint Earth-observation mission, focused on ocean salinity and soil moisture. At the same time, the two nations are pursuing the roll-out of the Space Climate Observatory (SCO) to deliver satellite data in support of tackling climate change and its impacts.
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25 March 2019
Jacqueline Klimas of POLITICO interviewed Rep. Rick Larsen, a member of the U.S. House Comittee on Transportation and Infrastructure, one of the standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. To her question whether US politicians understand the Chinese space threat, he answered: "I don’t think a lot of folks have a full understanding of the Chinese space program. Some of it is a threat, some of it is not. ... I think having a better understanding of the Chinese space program gives you an understanding of what the Chinese threat is. One thing I have concluded is the attempts in the late '90s to try to prevent China from growing its space program failed miserably. So the focus on trying to stop China from doing something perhaps diverted us from investing in the things we could do better."
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26 March 2019
Shoulder-length hair, black leather jacket, arms across her chest, a faint smile, Xu Ying graces the cover of a youth magazine. A rock star? No, Xu, 36, is a scientist. Xu leads a team at China's prime natural sciences research institute in developing the ground system and augmentation technology of China's BeiDou satellites.
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"Trust me, if you choose to use China-developed Beidou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), you could quickly be rescued when an accident happens, while others using GPS technology will still be waiting for help," said Xu Ying, a researcher from the Academy of Opto-Electronics (AOE) at the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS), in an interview with Chinese newspaper China Youth Daily.
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23 March 2019
The President of the Chinese academy of Sciences, Bai Chunli, told media outlet Sputnik that he had discussed with the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Alexander Sergeev, space cooperation and cooperation on Arctic exploration. A RAS delegation, headed by Sergeev, is currently on a working visit to China, where it will take part in the Chinese-Russian symposium on deep-water exploration of world's oceans, set to be held on 25 and 26 March.
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