03 April 2018
China aims to organize and launch a series of large international science projects in the coming years to solve important problems in science. China will organize and launch one or two large international science projects, and foster three to five projects by 2020. Another six to 10 large projects will be cultivated by 2035 to increase China's influence in the science and technology field, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) said. Areas such as the physical sciences, research on the evolution of the universe and the origin of life were specifically listed as priorities.
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04 April 2018
Progress on the Tianqin project, a Chinese research project to detect gravitational waves, was revealed to the public on 2 April. The Guangzhou-based Sun Yat-sen University started the Tianqin project in July 2015 and is being led by Luo Jun, a university physicist, who told China Central Television (CCTV) that the project was named after a metaphor.
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related:
China plans to launch 3 satellites around 2030 for gravitational wave research
02 April 2018
Tianqin, China's gravitational wave research project, plans to launch three satellites around 2030 to measure the change of time and space, said Luo Jun, initiator of the project and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Luo Jun said he and his team will carry out a four-stage plan over the next 15 to 20 years to detect the waves with three high-orbit satellites. "This is our Earth. Above the Earth, at the height of 100,000 kilometers, for example, we'll place three satellites and then connect them with laser beams. When there's a wave of time and space and when it spreads to the Earth, it will shrink on the one side and stretch on the other. By the interference of laser, we can measure the distance between the two satellites. It looks like a triangle, like a harp, and the hands that are playing it are the gravitational waves. That's why we call it 'Tianqin' (Heaven's Harp)," Luo said.
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09 April 2018
Software-based satellitea, which takes advantage of the internet's open source, can work in a way similar to the Android operating system to research and develop its software and hardware. Customers can use the platform to develop, test and debug software. "The satellite Tianzhi 1 will be sent mainly to lay the foundation for a network and to test key technologies for the software-defined satellite system. We are planning to send one satellite each year to enrich the system,"  Zhao Junsuo, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Software where the satellite was developed, told the Global Times on 08 April.
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photos of Tianzhi 1 on the CCTV website

 

05 April 2018
China's domestically-produced satellite navigation system BeiDou is said to have made significant progress on its accuracy. At a press conference on Tuesday, BeiDou engineers claimed that a new accurate positioning chip can now help users arrive at their destinations with an error margin of just one to two meters. The positioning accuracy improved from 10 meters to within one to two meters, allowing to distinguish the difference between the main highway and a side road. All this is now possible with the release of a new accurate positioning chip from China's very own satellite navigation system BeiDou.
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