Smart Dragon-1 (SD-1) commercial carrier rocket finishes engine test
03 April 2019
China's first carrier rocket for commercial use, the Smart Dragon-1 (SD-1), has finished its engine test, paving way for its maiden flight in the first half of 2019, according to the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT). The rocket is the first member of the Dragon series commercial carrier rockets family to be produced by CALT.
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Unearthing Aviation, Aerospace, And The Cosmos At Beijing’s Air And Space Museum
07 April 2019
“5...4...3...2...1, liftoff! We have liftoff!” Ah, music to my ears, and if you’re reading this, probably to yours too, eh? Mankind’s journey into space, from Russia’s launch of the first satellite, to NASA putting a man on the moon, and in today’s world, Space X blasting the first reusable rockets into the upper regions of the atmosphere, has been nothing short of an astonishing feat.
But one wonders - where does China come into play? As both a bonafide space geek and expat of the Middle Kingdom for the past 7+ years, I’ve always been curious about what accomplishments and developments China, now the world’s second largest economy, has done in the race to explore this beautiful universe we live in?
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Yutu 2 rover travels over 170 meters on Moon's far side
09 April 2019
China's lunar rover has driven 170.92 meters on the far side of the Moon to conduct scientific exploration on the virgin territory. The rover Yutu 2, or Jade Rabbit 2, took a "noon break" from 2 April to 8 April, as the temperatures on the Moon were extremely high, and continued its exploration, according to the Lunar Exploration and Space Programme Center of the China National Space Administration.
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Lunar meteorites shed light on origin of the Moon
10 April 2010
Research into lunar meteorites by a team of Chinese scientists has provided new evidence to support the giant-impact theory, which argues that the Moon was formed after a Mars-sized body impacted the Earth 4.5 billion years ago. Scientists with the Purple Mountain Observatory conducted research on three lunar meteorites from the U.S. space agency NASA and found chlorine isotopic fractionation, which only occurs in ultra-high-temperature and ultra-high-energy conditions, such as a giant collision between astronomical bodies.
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