09 November 2022
The combination of the Tianzhou 5 cargo spacecraft and a CZ-7 Y6 carrier rocket has been transferred to the launching area in preparation for launch, the CMSA said on 9 November. The facilities and equipment at the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Centre, are in good condition, and various pre-launch function checks and joint tests will be carried out as planned.
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09 November 2022
Airshow China shows a model of the country's next-generation manned rocket for lunar landing missions. With a takeoff weight of 2,100 t, the new launch vehicle is 90 m long. It has a lunar-transfer-orbit capacity of 27 t and a LEO capacity of 70 t. The rocket to carry taikonauts is expected to make its maiden flight in 2027, said Zhao Xinguo, of CALT, at the ongoing 14th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in the port city of Zhuhai, Guangdong Province. Apart from the manned rocket, the airshow also displays a model of a new heavy-lift rocket with greater carrying capacities. According to Zhao, it is capable of sending a payload of 50 t to Earth-moon transfer orbit, 35 t to Mars transfer orbit, and 150 t to the near-Earth orbit. The rocket is under development and scheduled to be launched around 2030, Zhao added.
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09 November 2022
As China's Tiangong space station recently completed its in-orbit assembly, the country's space medicine experts have started planning to set up a space medical unit, a so-called "space hospital" to serve astronauts, according to Du Jichen, president of the Aerospace Center Hospital in Beijing. "We are carrying out extensive research, experiments and tests on the ground to advance the preliminary work on a space hospital that can be deployed inside a manned spacecraft like our space station. The value of this project is that it will enable our space explorers to travel deeper and stay healthy during their journey," he said on 08 November at the Zhuhai Airshow.
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09 November 2022
China's Gaofen 5B Earth-observation satellite has helped identify 2 point sources of methane emissions in the U.S. state of New Mexico as it passed the region, according to Zhang Yongguang, a professor at Nanjing University. Based on a satellite image captured by the advanced hyperspectral images Gaofen 5B carried in February, the gradient of methane concentration in the two locations is estimated to be an enhancement of 25 parts per billion to 350 parts per billion higher than the background atmospheric methane concentration, he told China Daily on 09 November.
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