13 March 2020
Smriti Mallapaty is reporting for Nature magazine, that the launch for China's Mars 2020 is on track for July: "China’s first journey to Mars is one of the most anticipated space missions of the year. But with parts of the country in some form of lockdown because of the coronavirus, the mission teams have had to find creative ways to continue their work. ... Several days ago, the team had to move six scientific payloads for the orbiter from Beijing to Shanghai, where they will be assembled. Instead of risking the team members getting infected on a plane or high-speed train, 3 people drove the 6 payloads in a car - a journey that took more than 12 hours."
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14 March 2020
Yue Yuan, an expert on international relations and space security policies, summarised for the international web portal SpaceWatchGlobal how China used space technology in fighting the outbreak of the Coronavirus. She gives several examples how satellite navigation and positioning, telemedicine, distant learning and several user applications were and still are indispensable tools in tackling and mitigating the epidemy.
Part 1
Part 2
Another article on this topic by Tracy Cozzens for the website GPS World on the role of the Beidou Satellite Navigation System in the fight against the Coronavirus
13 March 2020
China's first polar-observing satellite has completed its Antarctic observation mission after orbiting Earth for six months. Since it was launched on 12 September 2019, the satellite called "Ice Pathfinder" (Code: BNU-1) has sent back more than 1,000 images covering the south polar region. It has observed two vast ice collapses in the continent, one occurred on the Amery Ice Shelf on 25 September 2019, and the other on the Pine Island Glacier in February 2020.
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10 March 2020
The Beijing Aerospace Control Center (BACC) announced on 10 March that China completed a probe test ahead of an exploration mission to Mars this year. The wireless network test is the only joint ground rehearsal between the mission center and the spacecraft. According to the center, the test has not been affected by the novel coronavirus epidemic, and the technical staff is working hard to ensure the success of the mission.
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10 March 2020
Leonard David gives a glimpse into China’s readiness to handle samples from the Moon. He outlines which steps need to be taken for storage, processing and preparation of the specimens which the next Chinese lunar mission, Chang'e 5 will return to Earth. "The Chang’e 5 mission will retrieve and return to Earth up to 4.4 pounds (2 kilograms) of lunar surface and subsurface samples. ... In a paper to be presented at this month’s now-cancelled Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) due to concerns about the COVID-19 virus, lead author, G. L. Zhang from the National Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, details the main tasks of the Ground Research Application System (GRAS) of the country’s lunar exploration project."
MORE on Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE webportal...
09 March 2020
China launched a new satellite of the Beidou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province on 9 March at 19:55 h (Beijing Time), only one step away from completing the whole global system. The satellite, the 54th of the Beidou family, was sent into a geostationary orbit as planned by a Long March-3B carrier rocket. The newly launched satellite is the second geostationary earth orbit satellite of the BDS-3 system, and the last one is expected to be launched in May.
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