10 July 2018
China sent a new Beidou navigation satellite into orbit on a Long March-3A rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, in the southwestern Sichuan Province, on 10 July at 4:58 a.m. local time. The satellite is the 32nd of the Beidou navigation system, and one of the Beidou-2 family, which is the second generation of the system. "The launch of a backup Beidou-2 satellite will ensure the system's continuous and stable operation," said Yang Hui, Chief Designer of the Beidou-2 series. This new backup is not a simple repeat of previous satellites, but has been upgraded to improve its reliability, he said.
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09 July 2018
China launched two satellites for Pakistan on a Long March-2C rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on 9 July at 11:56 a.m.
The PRSS-1 is China's first optical remote sensing satellite sold to Pakistan and the 17th satellite developed by the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) for an overseas buyer.
A scientific experiment satellite, PakTES-1A, developed by Pakistan, was sent into orbit via the same rocket. After entering orbit, the PRSS-1 is in good condition with its solar panels unfolded smoothly, according to CAST.
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08 July 2018
China is accelerating its timetable for a space station, with the core capsule expected to be launched in 2020, says Yang Liwei, Director of the China Manned Space Engineering Office and the country's first astronaut. Yang told Chinese media recently that the two experiment modules of the space station will be sent into space in 2021 and 2022. Three or four manned missions and several cargo spacecraft are planned in 2021 and 2022. After construction of the main parts of the space station, a capsule holding a large optical telescope will be sent into the same orbit to fly with the station, Yang said.
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07 July 2018
Scientists are expected to have a "decisive outcome" on search for the source of dark matter by 2024 after analyzing the huge amount of data on cosmic particles, said Nobel Prize winner Samuel Ting on 7 July. Ting, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1976 for discovering the J meson nuclear particle, made the remarks at a press conference held in Shandong University in east China. Ting leads the team that gathers particle data from Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) which was installed in international space station in 2011.
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07 July 2018
A Chinese delegation has proposed to Russia's Roscosmos state space corporation to discuss a possibility of the creation of a joint global satellite communications system, which could become an analogue of UK's OneWeb satellite constellation or Starlink, a source from Russian space industry told Sputnik news media agency: "The Chinese delegation proposed to create a Russian-Chinese system with the obligation for each party to create half of the orbital satellite constellation and take 50 percent of costs."
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07 July 2018
China had successfully finished the first joint hot-fire test of a new solid-fuel booster engine and its servomechanism system, the manufacture said on 7 July.
With a diameter of two meters, the booster engine is expected to be used on China's next generation medium-sized carrier rocket, according to a China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation statement. The segmented design was used in the engine, making it the most powerful solid-fuel engine at present, the statement said.
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