23 January 2018
Yang Liwei felt everything vibrating violently. Experiencing acceleration of gravity at 8G, he thought his body was about to be torn apart. He couldn't move. He couldn't see. "I thought I'd die in that 26 seconds," China's first taikonaut Yang told Xinhua, revealing details of the country's first manned space mission, Shenzhou 5, in 2003.
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24 January 2018
Shijian-13, China's first high-throughput communication satellite, has been put into service after completing a key laser communication test, China National Space Administration said 23 January. The high-orbit satellite has finished a two-way high-speed laser communication test between the satellite and ground, the first of its kind in the world, the administration said in a statement. Serving users in China, the satellite will connect communication base stations in remote areas and meet the needs of distance education, digital news gathering, and emergency communication, said Li Feng, chief satellite designer at China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.
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25 January 2018
China honored a group of taikonauts on 25 January with the title the "role models of our times." The Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee granted medals and certificates of honor to all members of the Taikonaut Corps of the People's Liberation Army, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this month.
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24 January 2018
China has accomplished its first successful Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR), with a 1.2-meter telescope laser ranging system. Based on the signals of laser pulses reflected by the lunar retro-reflector planted by the U.S. manned mission Apollo 15, the applied astronomy group from the Yunnan Observatories measured the distance between the Apollo 15 retro-reflector and the Yunnan Observatories ground station to be 385,823.433 km to 387,119.600 km, from 9:25 p.m. to 10:31 p.m. Beijing Time, on 22 January 2018.
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