31 July 2018
On 31 July, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) unveiled its micro rocket the Lightning Dragon No.1. The rocket, the first in the Lightning Dragon series, could have a carrying capacity of no less than 150 kilograms and operate on the sun-synchronous orbit, said CASC. The rocket is capable of launching within 24 hours after arriving at the launch site. It can be delivered to the customer six months after the signing of the contract. It is now under development by Chinarocket Co., Ltd. under CASC.
MORE...
31 July 2018
China on 30 July launched Gaofen-11, an optical remote sensing satellite, as part of the country's high-resolution Earth observation project.
The Gaofen-11 satellite was launched on a Long March 4B rocket at 11 a.m. Beijing Time from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern Shanxi Province. It was the 282nd flight mission by a Long March carrier rocket.
MORE...
29 July 2018
On 29 July, China sent two satellites into space via a single carrier rocket, entering a period with unprecedentedly intensive launches of BeiDou satellites.
The Long March-3B carrier rocket lifted off from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province at 9:48 a.m., the 281st mission of the Long March rocket series. The twin satellites are the 33rd and 34th of the BeiDou navigation system. They entered orbit more than three hours after the launch. After a series of tests, they will work together with eight BeiDou-3 satellites already in orbit, said the launch service provider.
MORE...
22 July 2018
Next time when your kids ask you to bring them a star from the sky, you don't have to shrug and walk away. Tell them to wait, instead. A group of Chinese scientists are mulling a bold idea to capture a small near-Earth asteroid, which might be a potential threat, and bring it back to Earth to exploit its resources.
"Sounds like science-fiction, but I believe it can be realized," said Li Mingtao, a researcher at the National Space Science Center under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
MORE...
26 July 2018
Chinese Academy of Sciences said at the end of July, that the atomic clock on board of Tiangong 2 has lost the equivalent of only one second in 30 million years during its two years in-orbit operation. The ultra precision is based on cold atom technology, performed in the microgravity environment of space.
MORE...
22 July 2018
When Chang Jin graduated from the University of Science and Technology of China and started work at the space astronomy lab in the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, in 1992, he was surprised to find that Chinese space astronomy was a blank sheet. "I felt like I was working in a car factory where no car had been produced," Chang, now Chief Scientist of China's Dark Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE), recalled.
Chang Jin grew up in a poor village in Taixing County, east China's Jiangsu Province. Any resource, be it food or money, was precious. "In my father's last days, he worried that if our satellite failed, the money wasted would be equivalent to the total income of tens of thousands of families in our hometown," said Chang. "That's why I work with extreme caution. We must succeed. We cannot waste the state's research money."
MORE...