14 December 2018
Late last week, China launched its ambitious Chang'e-4 Moon mission. The spacecraft is carrying a robotic lander and rover that will make an unprecedented attempt at a landing on the far side of the Moon early in the New Year. But one observer of China's space program thinks this mission is another indication that China has become a legitimate space superpower and could be in a position to win the race to return humans to the Moon. Brian Harvey is a Dublin-based writer on space issues, and author of China in Space: The Great Leap Forward. He says space provides a platform for China's military interests and well as international prestige. Harvey is giving a overview on the Chang'e programme, the science involved, the difficulties, Chang'e 4 will meet once attempting to land on the far side of the Moon and on China's long-term plans for lunar exploration. Listen to the highly interesting and revealing CBC Radio interview with Brian Harvey (10 min) here...

13 December 2018
Millennial’s start-up, Spacety, is one of the firms jumping in as Beijing opens its ambitious programme to private enterprise. “There are so many niche markets for satellites,” Yang, the 36-year-old Chief Executive Officer, said in his office at a Chinese Academy of Sciences complex in Beijing, with one of his machines sitting on the table in front of him. “I want to do low Earth orbit satellites in the areas that state-owned enterprises are too big to reach. I don’t want to just be a manufacturer,” Yang said. “I want to build my own network for others to use. I want to be the platform.”
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13 December 2018
The launching ceremony of the first science fiction film jointly financed by Macau and mainland China, titled “Space Intellectual,” was held on 12 December at the Macau University of Science and Technology. “Space Intellectual” will focus on hard science fiction concepts, and will pay tribute to the development and achievement of China’s aerospace industry. Filming is expected to be completed in 2019, with the premiere planned to take place in Macau. The project will also consult with a team of Chinese aerospace experts, including China’s first astronaut in space, Yang Liwei, with “the objective of creating the highest level of realism and a hard science fiction blockbuster that perfectly combines new mainstream cinema with scientific concepts.”
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12 December 2018
By 2019, China will become the first nation on earth to have sent a Lunar probe to the far side (sometimes called the dark side) of the Moon. While Western media coverage tends to ignore or deliberately downplay China’s space achievements, to include the Chang’e 4’s attempt, China has yet again proven that it is dead serious about its deadlines set for its ambitions in space. The ambition to land on the far side of the Moon was articulated by China’s space agencies years ago, and 2018 was set as the year when they would launch. And here we are, in 2018, with another Chinese space mission goal achieved as per the deadline set.
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10 December 2018
On 10 December in Beijing, in the presence of Bernard Larrouturou, the French government’s Director General of Research and Innovation, CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall addressed the preparatory meeting of the French-Chinese joint science and technology committee, where he gave a presentation on space cooperation between the two nations. He also reviewed the initial results from the CFOSat mission. Looking further ahead to new endeavours under this exceptional partnership between France and China, CNES’s President set out a nine-point action plan.
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12 December 2018
Ecommerce giant Alibaba, smart wearables maker Huami, and one of China’s largest esports live streaming platforms Douyu all saw their own satellites launched on Friday last week, making space the final frontier of marketing. Alibaba captured the most attention with a satellite dubbed Tmall International. It carried  1,111 recordings of love confessions from Singles' Day on November 11 - also known as Double 11.
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