12 February 2021
Experts from the China Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), the National Satellite Meteorological Centre, Beijing Normal University as well as research institutes from France, Spain, the United States and Israel have initiated a new project to foster cooperation in strengthening global agricultural drought monitoring. Through cooperating with the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and its members, the project will focus on establishing a global agricultural drought monitoring system with the Fengyun 3D, providing timely agricultural drought information services for worldwide users.
MORE...

15 February 2021
On 15 February 2021, Tianwen 1 performed its 1st Mars orbit adjustment. The probe's 3,000 N engine was ignited at 17:00 h when passing the 'apogee' of the Mars orbit. That allowed for a plane change to adjust the orbital inclination to a polar orbit. The manoeuvre also reduced the closest distance to Mars from 400 km to 265 km. There are 3 more orbit corrections expected to bring the current elliptical orbit to a circular working orbit.
MORE...

15 February 2021
While the space activities of China continue to advance in breadth and depth, rather little is known about the legal and regulatory framework within the country. It is difficult to find online sources and most texts are only available in Chinese. The article for SpaceWatchGlobal by Jan Helge Mey and Dr. Ingo Baumann tries to shed some light on the current legislative situation, with a special focus on those texts governing the growing commercial space sector.
MORE...
RELATED
New ESPI Report: New Space in Asia with broad details on China
Chapter 4 - Public policies to support commercial space in China

18 February 2021
The Secure World Foundation and Caelus Foundation released the report "Lost Without Translation: Identifying Gaps in U.S. Perceptions of the Chinese Commercial Space Sector". U.S. commercial space actors firmly believe that competition from China will be an inevitable part of their future decision-making. However, beyond this surety, there are significant gaps in understanding of how this competitive relationship will develop. For US stakeholders, it remains unclear who their Chinese competition will be, what resources they will have, and what rules they will operate under. By comparing common U.S. stakeholder perspectives with discourse and analysis on China’s commercial space sector, this paper highlights where more effort is required to better understand these emerging dynamics.
MORE...
RELATED
Report Release Event: Lost Without Translation: Identifying Gaps in U.S. Perceptions of the Chinese Commercial Space Sector