18 July 2019
Flying to the Moon used to be a distant dream for China, a newcomer in the space club. But the past decades have seen China speedily catching up in outer space exploration. In April, the China National Space Administration said it aimed to build a scientific research station in the south polar region of the moon and realize a manned lunar exploration mission in about 10 years. These steady streams of progress help boost enthusiasm about outer space in Chinese society. While conspiracy theories about the Apollo-11 moon landing being fabricated continued to thrive in the West, giant statues of astronauts popped up in Beijing's commercial districts like Wangfujing and Xidan days before the 50th anniversary of the historic lunar mission.
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18 July 2019
Echo Huang of Quartz online portal gives an overview on what to expect when Tiangong 2 will deorbit tomorrow. "Unlike Tiangong-1, which China lost contact with before it burned up somewhere over the South Pacific in April 2018, this one’s return is designed to be in a controlled manner. Any debris from Tiangong-2 is expected to fall east of New Zealand, in a region authorities estimate to be within a longitude between 160° to 90° W and latitude between 30° to 45° S - thousands of kilometers from land."
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18 July 2019
China startup company Xinghe Power, also known as Galactic Energy, plans to launch the Ceres-1 solid launch vehicle in March 2020 from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The Ceres-1 solid-fuelled rocket will consist of three solid stages and a liquid-propellant fourth stage. It has a remaining carrying capacity of 79 kg available to global customers for load-testing to be completed by December.
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17 July 2019
TIMES magazine published a short video and a report about the Mars Base 1 in China's Gobi Desert. The location was built by private Chinese company C-Space. It serves educational purposes, providing tours and courses for school students and the interested public: "Visitors experience what life is like on a real space mission, from rearing crops under an ultraviolet glow in soilless science labs to clambering around in bulky space suits. Barley worms are even grown for protein in lieu of rearing animals."
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