14 February 2018
The year 2018 will be an ambitious year for China's space program, with the largest number of Long March rocket launches.
According to Cen Zheng, rocket system commander-in-chief of the Long March-3A mission, 2018 will see 35 launches of the Long March rocket series, with 14 missions carried out by Long March-3A rockets and six by Long March-3C rockets. "Eight of the 14 Long March-3A rockets to be sent into space in 2018 will carry twin BeiDou-3 satellites," Cen said, enabling BeiDou system to provide navigation and positioning services to countries along the Belt and Road. He added: "The Long March-3A rocket family will fulfil 40 tasks from 2018 to 2020. We have a tight schedule." Although no Long March-7 rockets will be launched in 2018, developers are tasked with improving the rockets' reliability. Launches of Long March-5 have been scheduled for the latter half of this year in preparation for China's lunar probe and Mars probe missions.
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12 February 2018
Former NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson said on 12 February the U.S. should welcome foreign partnerships to help aide its space program, saying the government will face challenges if it pursues a plan to privatise the International Space Station. “Well I think we need everyone. If I were the king, I would try to negotiate and figure out a way to bring China and India in with us as well. If you work with people in space, you don’t fight with them on the ground,” he said.
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12 February 2018
China sent two navigation satellites into orbit on a single carrier rocket for its domestic BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) on 12 February. The twin satellites, which form a network with four previously launched BeiDou-3 satellites, were the fifth and sixth satellites in the BeiDou-3 family. They entered orbit more than three hours after the launch from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province. All of the BeiDou satellites were launched from Xichang and all of the missions were successful, said Dong Chongqing, Party secretary of the launch center.
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09 February 2018
Beijing Normal University (BNU) and China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC) on 09 February signed the cooperation agreement and released the plan to develop the polar observation microsat (BNU-1). The microsat BNU-1 will be jointly developed by the BNU, CGWIC and Shenzhen Aerospace Dongfanghong Development Ltd. It will be the first small satellite for scientific experiment a Chinese university would have developed using remote sensing, to study the polar climate and for environmental monitoring.
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12 February 2018
On 10 February, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the military base of Xichang satellite launch site in southwest China's Sichuan Province Saturday, ahead of the launch of BeiDou-3 satellites. Two BeiDou-3 satellites were sent into space on 12 February. Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, inspected the preparation work for the launch while visiting the site's command center. He talked with the scientists and technicians, asking them about their research, work and lives. They were told to keep pursuing precision and perfection to ensure the success of the launch.
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08 February 2018
The quick positioning platform of China's Beidou navigation and positioning system is serving more than 200 countries and regions around the globe, China North Industries Group Corporation Limited (NORINCO) announced 08 February. The location service platform of Qianxun Spatial Intelligence Inc, a company using Beidou services that was co-founded by NORINCO and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, has more than 90 million customers, the corporation said at its yearly work meeting.
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