12 December 2020
After 6 days in circular lunar orbit, the Chang'e 5 return capsule raised its orbit into an elliptical path. This orbital maneuver at 9:54 BJT on 12 December prepared the spacecraft for the 2nd manoeuvre to higher the ellipse again and make it consequently possible for the craft to enter a Moon-Earth transfer trajectory and bring the 2 kg of lunar samples home.
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10 December 2020
Two satellites for the detection of gravitational waves are launched by a Long March-11 carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in southwest China's Sichuan Province on 10 December 2020 at 4:14 BJT. Both satellites are for the detection of gravitational waves, composing the Gravitational Wave High-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM) mission. The GECAM satellites will be used to monitor high-energy celestial phenomena such as gravitational wave gamma-ray bursts, high-energy radiation of fast radio bursts, special gamma-ray bursts and magnetar bursts, and to study neutron stars, black holes and other compact objects and their merger processes.
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10 December 2020
Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron reached important consensus on China-France cooperation in the next stage during a phone conversation on 09 December. The two heads of state held discussions on the bilateral and multilateral cooperation in the next stage, reached a number of important consensus and instructed relevant departments of the two countries to step up implementation of more cooperation in such fields as biomedicine, biological breeding, Moon and Mars exploration and satellite research and development.
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10 December 2020
China has launched a data platform for sharing near-space science data to facilitate research, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The Scientific Experimental System in Near Space platform, is led by the Aerospace Information Research Institute under the CAS. It includes original near-space data generated from various scientific experiments and data analyses, covering meteorological, hydrological and geographic information. The data spans multiple fields including biology, atmosphere, electromagnetics and radiation.
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09 December 2020
China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) announced on 9 December that it has completed the in-orbit delivery of the communication satellite APSTAR-6D to its customer. China Great Wall Industry Corporation, a commercial satellite launch company under the CASC, delivered the satellite to Shenzhen-based APT Mobile SatCom Limited.
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10 December 2020
Tianwen-1, which was launched in late July and has been in space for 139 days, is expected to be captured by the gravity of the Red Planet around the Chinese Spring Festival in mid-February, its developer China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASTC) said on 9 December. The probe, launched on July 23, has conducted three orbital corrections and a deep-space maneuver.
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