17 April 2022
Kites themed on China's Tiangong space station fly in the sky to celebrate the successful return of 3 taikonauts at the Weifang International Kite Festival, in east China's Shangdong Province, on 17 April 2022. Weifang is the city of kites. The kite has several parts and a Shenzhou space craft can be guided to dock with the bigger part of the kite, representing the Tiangong space station and an astronaut performing an extravehicular spacewalk (animated with a motor). The kite has a lenght of 160 m and a team of 20 kite artists has worked on it for 2 months. The space station complex has a dimension of 6 x 3.5 m.
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link to WeChat news story with video sequences of the kit
17 April 2022
On 17 April, The State Council Information Office gave a press conference on the progress of the construction of the Chinese Space Station. Hao Chun, Director of the China Manned Space Engineering Office, gave on overview on the upcoming tasks for finalising the assembly of the CSS. The 2 science modules will be launched in the 2nd half of 2022, during the stay of the SZ-14 mission. The SZ-15 mission has to verify the operational functionality of the modules. Both crews are assigned but the names were not revealed. For the 1st time SZ-15 will rotate with SZ-14 in orbit, to start the permanent occupation of the CSS. Per year, 2 crews will stay for 6 months on the CSS with an overlap of several days.
link to press conference with Chinese transcript
http://www.scio.gov.cn/xwfbh/xwbfbh/wqfbh/47673/48121/index.htm
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details on the Wentian and Mengtian science lab modules
details on the crewed missions
16 April 2022
Will China's Tiangong space station become a station shared by all mankind? Bai Linhou, Vice Chief Designer of the CSS, said "absolutely yes" in an exclusive interview with the Global Times, as the space station can be expanded technically and has reserved docking hatches.
Cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, said in a recent interview that China's space programme is "good and fast," and that he and his colleagues are willing to participate in China's space programmes if China allows it.
Dmitry Rogozin, Head of Roscosmos, also said in an interview with Chinese media that China and Russia can cooperate in the field of manned spaceflight. China and Russia can explore the construction of new modules and cabins. For Rogozin's idea, Bai said technically China's space station can be expanded by adding more cabins. "It is workable, but needs to match current cabins."
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16 April 2022
On 16 April at 02:16 BJT, China launched on board a CZ-4C rocket the Daqi 1 atmosphere environment monitoring satellite from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre. The satellite has entered orbit. It will carry out regional air quality and environment monitoring, and provide data support for China's atmospheric environment monitoring, global climate change research, crop yield estimation, and agricultural disaster monitoring.
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16 April 2022
The Shenzhou 13 crewed space craft left the core module of the CSS on 16 April at 00:44 BJT and prepared for landing. The crew capsule touched down at the designated Dongfeng landing site in the Gobi Desert, North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, on 16 April at 09:56 BJT. The search and rescue teams at the Dongfeng landing site secured the return capsule and ensured the safe egress of the Shenzhou 13 crew.
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UPDATE...
15 April 2022
On 15 April at 20:00 BJT, China launched onboard a CZ-3B rocket the Zhongxing 6D (ChinaSat 6D) telecommunication satellite from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre. Zhongxing 6D entered its planned orbit. The satellite will provide reliable, stable and safe radio and television transmission and communication services.
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