27 October 2019
The latest issue of the GoTaikonauts! newsletter, issue no 26 was published. The brochure contains the quarterly report of the last quarter of 2018 and three background articles. "UNISPACE+50 - When the world talks space" reports from the United Nations Global Space Conference last year in June in Vienna. It gives some details about China's special events during the conference, but also puts into context the new developments in the changing environment of the utilisation of space.
Brian Harvey made some interesting observations on the sails of the Yuanwang tracking ships which he shares in his article "Following Yuanwang tracking ships - Observations on the maneuvres of China’s fleet of tracking ships".
Also included in this issue is a longer report about the 4th CCAF 2018 "4th China (International) Commercial Aerospace Forum Wuhan 2018 - Full speed ahead!" The article tries to reflect on the special atmosphere during the conference and gives some impressions about the current situation among the new commercial player in China.
also see: http://www.go-taikonauts.com/en/e-magazine
26 October 2019
Scientists with the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (Insight-HXMT) team presented their new results on black hole and neutron star X-ray binaries during a press conference held on 25 October at the first China Space Science Assembly in Xiamen. The scientists were able to study quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in black hole X-ray binaries up to 100 keV, an increase from the previous upper limit of 30 keV. They revealed the energy dependence of QPO amplitude and centroid frequency ranges from 1-100 keV. These achievements exceed what was possible with previous satellites and open a new window for black hole studies.
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24 October 2019
Chinese scientists are determined to carry out two of the nation's most challenging space endeavors next year: its Chang'e 5 lunar mission and first Mars exploration. Ye Peijian, a leading space exploration researcher at the China Academy of Space Technology, said in Beijing: "We have been improving the overall reliability of the Chang'e 5 mission since it was postponed, and we continue to make plans for all possible contingencies to make sure the program will succeed." The original plan for the Chang'e 5 mission was to launch it at the end of 2017. However, the failure of the second launch of the Long March 5 carrier rocket, the country's largest and mightiest rocket and the one tasked with ferrying the Chang'e 5 probe, led to the lunar mission's delay. Ye also said: "If Chang'e 5 is successful, then we will send Chang'e 6 to the lunar south pole to collect samples and bring them back because it is scientifically important for scientists to survey and investigate the south pole."
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23 October 2019
The Chang'e 4 lander and the rover have resumed work for the 11th lunar day on the Far Side of the Moon after "sleeping" during the 10th lunar night. The lander woke up on 23 October, at 5:11 h (Beijing Time), and the rover, Yutu-2 (Jade Rabbit-2), awoke on 22 October at 11:45 h BJT. Both are in normal working conditions, according to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration. The rover has traveled about 290 meters on the moon to conduct scientific exploration on the virgin territory.
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24 October 2019
In the wilderness of Daocheng, southwest China's Sichuan Province, 4,400 meters above sea level, Chinese scientists are constructing the Large High-Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO), a cosmic ray observation facility of the area equivalent to 200 football fields. Different detectors are being installed to form a huge "net" to catch the particles generated by cosmic rays in the atmosphere, to help scientists study both the micro and the macro worlds in the universe. Three huge underground pools, more than triple the size of the Water Cube (National Aquatic Center) in Beijing, will hold detectors to collect high-energy photons generated by remote celestial bodies. Surrounding the pools, 12 telescopes will be erected to conduct high-precision measurement of cosmic rays with the highest energy.
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23 October 2019
Researchers from the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Perth, Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States and Shanghai Astronomical Observatory in China processed 400 gigabytes of data a second as they tested data pipelines for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope, according to an ICRAR statement released on 22 October.
"Completing this test successfully tells us we'll be able to deal with the data deluge of the SKA when it comes online in the next decade," said Andreas Wicenec, the director of Data Intensive Astronomy at ICRAR.
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