05 February 2020
Florence Rabier, Director General of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) sent a letter to Ms. Liu Yaming, Administrator of China Meteorological Administration (CMA) and expressed gratitude to CMA for providing ECMWF with Fengyun-4A data and constantly improving new instrument data quality.
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05 February 2020
The first Long March 5B carrier rocket arrived at the Wenchang Space Launch Centre in Hainan province on 5 February for prelaunch preparations. The rocket's components were carried by two rocket transportation ships, the Yuanwang 21 and Yuanwang 22, from Tianjin, a northern coastal municipality and home to the launch vehicle's manufacturing complexes. It spent about a week on the trip to the southernmost island province, according to the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology in Beijing. At the launch center, the rocket will undergo a series ground tests with the Chinese space station's core module to verify the launch sequence for the space station missions. After the drills, it will carry out the debut flight in April to launch the test version of the country's new manned spaceship, said the China Manned Space Agency.
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CGTN footage of the arrival

08 February 2020
The latest issue of GoTaikonauts!, issue no 27 was just published. The newsletter features the obligatory Chinese Space Quarterly Report, covering the period of January - March 2019. The diary-like article gives an overview on the first three lunar days of Chang'e 4's operations on the far side of the Moon. In an detailed report, Blaine Curcio of Orbital Gateway Consulting describes his observations during visits to several European space companies and he is comparing those insights into the fundamental set-up and operation of the European and Chinese space industry. Brian Harvey reveals on hand of the raw data from Marine Traffic the movements of the fleet of Yuanwang space tracking vessels during the reporting period of mid-September to the end of December 2019. And last but not least we are republishing Donovan Cosby's impressions from a tour to the Beijing Air and Space museum.
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09 February 2020
The GoTaikonauts! team is currently working on the newsletter no 28, comprising a detailed report on the 5th China (International) Commercial Aerospace Forum - 5th CCAF which took place in November 2019. Since 2017, we have been visiting the capital of the Hebei province Wuhan for attending this annual international commercial space conference. Without the CCAF space conference, Wuhan would not mean much to us. However, over the years we came to feel like at home in Wuhan. We know the places and we know the warm-hearted people of this city in the centre of China. We wish to honour the 11 million inhabitants of Wuhan - the town which is affected the most by the current outbreak of the Corona virus. We wish them strength and we express our hope to come back to Wuhan soon. GoTaikonauts! issue no 28 will be dedicated to the people of Wuhan.