29 October 2018
China sent an ocean-observing satellite successfully into space on 29 October, a joint mission pursued under close Sino-French space cooperation that will enable scientists to study, for the first time, ocean surface winds and waves simultaneously. The China-France Oceanography Satellite (CFOSat), atop a Long March-2C carrier rocket, took off at 8:43 a.m. from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, in northwest China's Gobi Desert, and entered a sun-synchronous orbit 520 km above the Earth. Jointly developed by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) and the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, the French space agency, the satellite will conduct 24-hour observations of global wave spectrum, effective wave height, and ocean surface wind field, said Zhao Jian, a senior official with CNSA.
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link to AFP news "China, France launch satellite to study climate change"
CNES CFOSat programme website
"The SpaceTY Four" - an innovative set of cubesats hitched a ride with CFOSat
On board of CZ-2C were the "SpaceTY Four", a set of four cubesats, developed by SpaceTY, the Tianyi Satellite Research Institute. Xiaoxiang-1-02 TY1-02; Xinghe TY1-03; Tongchuan-1 TY1-04; Changsha Zergling TY4-01. On 29 October, at 22:00 h BJT, SpaceTY confirmed that the "SpaceTY Four" had established a stable telemetry and were in good health.
MORE (in Mandarin) with photos...
for more information on the four cubesats, please, have a look at our Facebook website...
or follow this link (in Mandarin) with photos
26 October 2018
A research team from Tsinghua University in Beijing, led by Wei Fei, a professor with the Department of Chemical Engineering, has developed a fibre they say is so strong it could even be used to build an elevator to space. The team has developed a new “ultralong” fibre from carbon nanotube that they say is stronger than anything seen before, patenting the technology and publishing part of their research in the journal Nature Nanotechnology earlier this year.
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27 October 2018
GoTaikonauts! wishes to congratulate Landspace Technology Corporation on its today’s attempt of reaching orbital space.
Today, at 16:00 h BJT (10:00 h Middle-European Summer Time) Landspace made its very own giant leap and launched LandSpace-1 (Zhuque-1). It carried Weilai 1 (Future 1), an educational satellite for CCTV, featuring in-orbit experiment and imaging capabilities and was built by MinoSpace Technology. This pilot flight, reaching more than 300 km height, is a big step for China, showing the success of its strategy of military-civil integration which enables commercial space start-ups like Landspace. Talented engineers and motivated teams were capable to come up with a high-performance product in an extremely short time. Respect!
See a video of the preparation of the rocket in the Landspace facilities.
See the launch video, as posted on Weibo.
GoTaikonauts! wishes to thank MinoSpace and Landspace for the opportunity to share this moment in history with the great teams at the launch site.
For more photos, please, have a look on our Facebook page.
23 October 2018
During the Fifth Manned Space Conference, which opened on 23 October in Xi'an, CMSA, China Manned Space Agency made some technical specifications of the core module of the country's future manned space station public.
The core module, Tianhe, or Harmony of Heavens, will have three parts: the connecting section, life-support and control section, and resources section. The module will be equipped with three docking hatches reserved for visiting manned or cargo spacecraft and two berthing locations used to connect with space laboratories. There will also be a hatch for astronauts' extravehicular activities.
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related:
Space station to be showcased at air show
23 October 2018
A mock-up module of China's future space station will debut at the weeklong Zhuhai Airshow next month in what Chinese observers dubbed a global invitation to hop aboard China's space research.
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25 October 2018
China sent a new marine satellite into orbit in the morning of 25 October to form a network with the subsequent HY-2C and HY-2D for maritime environmental monitoring. A Long March-4B rocket carrying the HY-2B satellite took off at 6:57 a.m. from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China's Shanxi Province.
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25 October 2018
Pakistan has decided in principle to send its astronauts on a space mission with assistance of China. The decision to this regard will be taken during the Federal Cabinet meeting today with Prime Minister Imran Khan in the chair. The Cabinet will also ratify the space mission proposal soon after discussion on the matter. In December last year, Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman had announced that Pakistan will be able to send astronauts into space with the collaboration of China in the next two years.
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