15 May 2020
“The empty core stage of the Long March-5B, weighing nearly 20 tons, was in an uncontrolled freefall along a path that carried it over Los Angeles and other densely populated areas. As a matter of fact, had this spent rocket stage, which is the largest uncontrolled object to fall from low-Earth orbit in almost 30 years, reentered earlier, it could have hit New York. .... Space exploration should inspire hope and wonder, not fear and danger.” said Jim Bridenstine, during a meeting of the NASA Advisory Council’s Regulatory and Policy Committee on the release of the "Artemis Accords" on 15 May 2020.
MORE on M. Smith's blog spacepolicyonline.com
17 May 2020
On 17 May 2020, the Chang'e 4 mission on the far side of the Moon has been operational for 500 days. Yutu 2 accumulated 447.68 m of traversing the lunar surface and is currently positioned at a distance of 292 m from the lander. Yutu 2 woke up at 11:53 BJT on 16 May to continue operation for the 18th lunar day. The lander woke up at 3:25 BJT on 17 May.
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Chinese scientists found that materials at the Chang’e 4 landing site are different from most sampled mare basalts and may represent deep-seated materials potentially from the lunar mantle, low-calcium pyroxene and olivine, delivered to the Chang’e 4 landing site by ejecta from the Finsen crater. These initial findings were published in Nature journal. Future operations of the Yutu 2 rover will focus on validating these initial results.
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abstract on Nature website...
15 May 2020
China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) set up a commercial satellite-shopping platform called Lizheng Satellite Shopping Mall on WeChat. The online shop for ordering a satellite plus data service is accessible to the public. Customers, domestic or abroad, can pick their favorite satellites and put them into shopping carts on their phone, and even talk to customer service personnel about details of their purchases. The price of the services was not shown on the platform.
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14 May 2020
An ocean satellite data archive, developed by the National Satellite Ocean Application Service of the Ministry of Natural Resources and comprising the data of the Haiyang-1, Haiyang-2 series satellites and the China-France Oceanography Satellite, went online on 14 May. The system received 20,000 visits and 838 users registered on the first day. Data to 161 organizations were distributed. Users can check the daily, weekly and monthly archives and distribution of ocean satellite data on the WeChat account of the National Satellite Ocean Application Service.
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15 May 2020
China will launch in June the last satellite for the Beidou-3 Navigation Satellite System, complementing the current 29 satellites with the 30th satellite in order to provide services to global users, Ran Chengqi, Director of the China Satellite Navigation Office said. "The satellite and rocket have been moved to the launch site, and we are making all preparations before launch, which is expected to be implemented as planned," he said. The last satellite of the Beidou-3 satellites is to be launched is a geostationary orbit. "After the launch of the last satellite, we will later announce the completion of the global system and provide all Beidou services, such as high-precision services," Ran added.
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China's central SOEs to achieve collaborative development with satellite navigation industry
13 May 2020
Experts used China's quantum satellite - Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) - to verify quantum-secure time transfer for the first time, which laid a foundation for building a safe satellite navigation system. The study published on Nature Physics was jointly accomplished by Professor Pan Jianwei from the University of Science and Technology of China and his colleagues. High-precision time synchronization plays an important role in fundamental science and real-life applications, including navigation and positioning.
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