17 January 2020
Over the past few months, China's aerospace industry has witnessed many landmark events. Apart from celebrating these scientific achievements and milestones, the public has also developed a growing interest in the missions' unique names, of which many are derived from China's myths and legends. Here are some examples. China's spacecraft are called Shenzhou. This literally means "heavenly ship" in Chinese, and is also a homonym for the Chinese words "divine land," which is a term used in literary works to refer to the country.
MORE...

18 January 2020
On 17 January, China's space-tracking ship Yuanwang 6 completed its first overhaul after trail voyages, preparing for future missions. Docking at a port on east China coast, the vessel represents the third generation of the country's Yuanwang space-tracking ships. The nine-month overhaul started in April 2019 at Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai, the vessel's first major maintenance after it was commissioned in 2008. It has improved the ship's power system and enhanced the operability of onboard equipment.
MORE...

19 January 2020
Researchers from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) have developed the country's first Hall-effect thruster (HET) with an input power of 20 kilowatts that can produce a thrust of one newton, marking a leap for China's HETs from millinewton level to newton level. During a test, the thruster showed stable operation, with a specific impulse of 3068 seconds and working efficiency above 70 percent. HETs could have wide applications in the attitude control of satellites and the use as a main propulsion engine for medium-size robotic space vehicles.
MORE...

19 January 2020
On 19 January, the engines for the fourth flight of the Long March 5 complete final testing and are prepared for final assembly.
Unconfirmed reports in (Chinese language) by a Hebei-based "military" blogger on Weibo gives a launch date for the 23 July with arrival on Mars in February 2021 and landing in April 2021. It is not clear, how reliable this information is.
Link to the official news on ECNS
In case of interest for the Weibo report, please check out (at your own risk) here