24 April 2021
During the China Space Conference on the occasion of the China Space Day 2021 in Nanjing, Hu Hao, the chief designer of the third stage of China's lunar exploration programme confirmed that the intention is to launch Chang'e 6 as a sample return mission from the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the Moon around 2024.
CNSA has invited the international science community to participate in the mission. 4 payloads developed by scientists from France, Sweden, Italy, Russia and China have been preliminarily selected. After the detailed plan of the Chang'e-6 mission comes out, the payloads will be finally determined, said Hu.
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26 April 2021
CASIC plans to produce a reusable aerospace plane and put it into commercial flight by 2030. The plane will take off from and land on a conventional runway like a jetliner and will be capable of flying in near space or even into outer space. The low-cost aircraft will have high-quality safety features and will be used to fulfill a wide range of operations such as space tourism, astronaut commuting, satellite deployment, cargo transportation and emergency rescue, the State-owned defense conglomerate said in an introduction board in front of a scale model of the new craft, which is on display at the 2021 China Space Conference. The company said it has conducted a key flight test by a conceptual demonstration prototype to verify the propulsion shift mechanism between ramjet and rocket engine.
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27 April 2021
On 27 April at 11:20 BJT, a Long March 6 launched from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre in North China's Shanxi province. 9 satellites, including Qilu 1 and Qilu 4, have entered their planned orbits and will provide East China's Shandong province with remote sensing services for land survey, urban construction, agriculture, forestry, energy, disaster prevention and reduction. Other satellites onboard the rocket were the Foshan 1, the Zhong'an Guotong 1, Apocalypse Constellation 09, Originspace NEO 1, Taijing 2-01, Golden Bauhinia 1-01 and Golden Bauhinia 1-02. They will be used to test technologies in satellite platform design, real-time imaging and observation, data acquisition and transmission, or to offer observations of small celestial bodies and remote sensing services. The CZ-6 is scheduled for 4 flights in 2021.
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For better details on the satellites and the mission - see the Chinese language website of 'spaceflightfans'
http://www.spaceflightfans.cn/92600.html
and here:
http://www.spaceflightfans.cn/92596.html

27 April 2021
Blaine Curcio of Orbital Gateway Consulting and Jean Deville of The China Aerospace Blog are reporting for SpaceWatch.Global on China's main space events of the last week. This time the two experts cover 4 recent topics: 1. The 6th China Space Day; 2. ChinaSat's statements about China’s Constellation Plans; 3. SpaceTY and Intane Optics complete China’s first private satellite-ground laser comms experiment, and 4. Tianbing Aerospace Announces an Intelligent Rocket Manufacturing Base in Suzhou. Like always: this is an highly interesting and informative read or podcast!!!
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