14 November 2017
Yang Baohua from the China Aerospace Science and Technological Corporation (CASC), a state-owned entity that develops and manufactures spacecraft and launch vehicles, said the company is “ready to provide cheaper and faster low-earth orbit rocket launches”. The People’s Daily, the Communist Party‘s mouthpiece, quoted Yang as saying: “The price could be as low as $5,000 per kilogram and the pre-launch preparation will only need a week.” “We are quite competitive,” ISRO spokesperson Deviprasad Karnik said, responding to China’s plans. Reacting to China’s plans to drastically reduce launch costs, he said not only is the Indian agency “competitive”, but it is working to reduce the cost of access to space through new technology. The effort is to bring down launch costs to “one-tenth” of what they are now, the official said.
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14 November 2017
Qi Faren, Chief Designer of China's spacecrafts, says "China has developed the Long March 1, the Long March 2, the Long March 3, and the Long March 4. The Long March 5, launched last year, has a carrying capacity of 25 tons, which is the largest in the world. It is quite remarkable." He also talks about space resources.
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12 November 2017
Beijing and Taipei will join hands in space to monitor the electromagnetic signals that can precede earthquakes following a landmark intergovernmental agreement last month. Some earthquakes emit electromagnetic waves before they occur and scientists hope to collect and study those signals to further the development of earthquake forecasting.
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08 November 2017
Breakthrough Starshot has been initiated by Stephen Hawking and Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner and aims to build laser beam-propelled "nanocraft" that can travel at 20 percent of the speed of light and is much faster than today's swiftest spacecraft. "Breakthrough Starshot is an opportunity for man to make early forays into outer space, with a view to probing and weighing the possibilities of colonisation," said Hawking in a video address at Tencent's We Summit, an annual gathering where luminaries share ideas on science and technology.
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