18 August 2021
In this 2nd part of their weekly update on Chinese space news, Jean Deville and Blaine Curcio cover topics like CAS Space aims for space tourism, the funding round by commercial start-up Interspace Explore and information about the town of Guangzhou ambitions for Satellite Internet within its 14th Five-Year Plan.
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18 August 2021
Mars rover Zhurong has accomplished its exploration and detection tasks as planned, reaching its designed life time. As of 15 August 2021, Zhurong had worked on the surface of Mars for 90 Martian days, or about 92 Earth days, with all scientific payloads operating nominally. The rover traversed 889 m across the surface. Mission Control has collected about 10 Gb of raw data from the rover payloads. Currently, Zhurong operates in good condition with sufficient energy. It will continue to move to the boundary zone between the ancient sea and the ancient land in the southern part of Utopia Planitia, and will carry out additional tasks.
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17 August 2021
3rd generation space tracking ship Yuanwang 6 departed on 17 August from its home port in east China's Jiangsu Province for a new round of monitoring missions in the Indian Ocean. YW-6 will operate at sea for around 76 days, covering more than 16,000 nautical miles during its voyage. Before departure, the ship's staff completed vessel examination and maintenance, ensuring all systems and facilities aboard were in good working condition.
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16 August 2021
This week, Blaine Curcio and Jean Deville discuss efforts by commercial company Space Transportation for point-to-point space transportation missions and space tourism, give more details on China's plans for a lunar lander and about in-flight connectivity and entertainment by China Eastern airline.
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17 August 2021
China recently compiled its first global carbon flux dataset based on high-quality data collected by the country's first CO2 monitoring satellite TanSat. Chinese scientists came up with a complicated and original methodology at the processing stage, including retrieval and data assimilation from TanSat spectral measurements and CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere to track carbon flux. The result has been published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.
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16 August 2021
On 16 August, the CZ-7 Y4 rocket, for the launch of the new cargo craft of China's space station, arrived at Wenchang Space Launch Site. The Tianzhou 3 cargo craft has already been transported to the Wenchang. Rocket and cargo craft will be assembled and tested at the launch site. The rocket for the next crew flight and the Shenzhou 13 crew space craft are also undergoing preparations as scheduled at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre. China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO) said the facilities and equipment at both launch sites are in good condition and all systems that will be involved in the mission are undergoing orderly preparations.
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