Tiangong-2
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An innovative China gets global attention
BEIJING - With a series of scientific breakthroughs during the past year, China is ushering in 2017 looking to grow into one of the world's great innovators. In his New Year speech, Chinese President Xi Jinping touched on many scientific and technological achievements made in 2016, such as the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) being put into operation, and the Dark Matter Particle Explorer Satellite "Wukong" in orbit for a year. He also mentioned launching of a quantum satellite and the Shenzhou-11 and Tiangong-2 space missions. "We have made a series of breakthroughs this year and established a set of regulations as well as a quality guarantee system. We have also built a young and capable team," said Li Jian, head of the Beijing Aerospace Control Center. FAST, the world's largest radio telescope, was put into use in September in southwest China to observe space and look for extraterrestrial life. The telescope may help people better understand the origin and structure of the universe, and accelerate the search for life beyond earth. China's first dark-matter detection satellite "Wukong," named after the legendary Monkey King, was sent into space in December 2015 to search for signals of dark matter, invisible material that scientists say makes up most of the universe's mass. The quantum satellite was sent into space in August in an effort to start "hack-proof" quantum communications by transmitting uncrackable keys from space to the ground. Launched on Oct. 17, the Shenzhou-11 spacecraft docked two days later with China's first space lab Tiangong-2 where two astronauts lived for 30 days, the longest time Chinese astronauts have spent in space. Besides space technology, China has seen outstanding achievements in other cutting edge areas during 2016. In June, China's new supercomputing system Sunway-TaihuLight was named the world's fastest computer at the International Supercomputing Conference in Germany. In September, a national genebank with more than 10 million bio-samples was opened to work on human health research and the conservation of global bio-diversity. Aside from major cutting-edge fields, the country's innovation strength can be seen in individual companies in all areas. According to a report published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), China ranked top in the world for patent applications, receiving over one million applications in 2015. China joined the ranks of the world's top 25 innovative economies in the Global Innovation Index released by Cornell University, INSEAD and WIPO in August. "This is in keeping with all the developments that we have seen in China in recent years, including the use of innovation as a major component in the transition of the Chinese economy from 'made in China' to 'created in China,'" WIPO Director General Francis Gurry said. As a country determined to pursue innovation-driven development, China is ready to make even bigger moves in the future. Three major steps are to be taken on China's innovation-driven development, according to guidelines unveiled in May. The guidelines said the country would be an "innovative nation" by 2020, an international leader in innovation by 2030, and a world powerhouse of scientific and technological innovation by 2050.
White paper sets out China's vision as a space power
BEIJING -- China aims to become a space power, according to a white paper on the nation's space activities issued on Tuesday. The white paper, titled "China's Space Activities in 2016," was the fourth white paper on the country's space activities issued by the State Council Information Office, following the previous three in 2000, 2006 and 2011. "The white paper sets out our vision of China as a space power, independently researching, innovating, discovering and training specialist personnel," said Wu Yanhua, deputy chief of the China National Space Administration at a press conference. China's space industry took off 60 years ago and April 24 was declared National Space Day in 2016 as a focus for pioneering spirit and enthusiasm for innovation, Wu said. PEACEFUL USE OF SPACE China always adheres to the principle of the use of outer space for peaceful purposes, and opposes the weaponization of or an arms race in outer space, the white paper said. The country develops and utilizes space resources in a prudent manner, takes effective measures to protect the space environment to ensure a peaceful and clean outer space and guarantee that its space activities benefit the whole of mankind. In the next five years and beyond China will uphold the concepts of innovative, balanced, green, open and shared development, and promote the comprehensive development of space science, space technology and space applications, so as to contribute to both serving national development and improving the well-being of mankind, according to the white paper. RAPID PROGRESS SINCE 2011 The new developments are "manifested by markedly enhanced capacity in independent innovation and access to outer space," and "constant improvement in space infrastructure," said the white paper. The progress is also evidenced by "smooth implementation of major projects such as manned spaceflight, lunar exploration, the BeiDou Navigation System and high-resolution earth observation system, and substantial achievements in space science, technology and applications." According to the white paper, "the Long March carrier rocket series completed 86 launch missions, sending over 100 spacecraft into target orbit" from 2011 to November 2016. In September and October 2016, the Tiangong-2 space laboratory and Shenzhou-11 manned spacecraft were launched and formed an assembly that operates steadily, with the mission of carrying out science and technology experiments in space, the white paper said. The mission indicates that "China has mastered technologies concerning astronauts' mid-term stay in orbit, and long-term ground mission support," according to the white paper. TASKS FOR NEXT FIVE YEARS China will continue its lunar exploration project in the next five years, and strive to attain the automated extraterrestrial sampling and returning technology by space explorers. Around 2018, the nation will carry out the Chang'e-4 mission to achieve the first soft landing of mankind's probe on the far side of the moon. The Chang'e-4 lunar probe will "conduct in situ and roving detection and relay communications at earth-moon L2 point." China plans to launch its first Mars probe by 2020 and grasp key technologies for orbiting, landing and roving exploration. It will conduct further studies and key technological research on the bringing back of samples from Mars, asteroid exploration, exploration of the Jupiter system and planet fly-by exploration, according to the white paper. China plans to form a BeiDou network consisting of 35 satellites for global navigation services by 2020, and to start providing basic services to countries along the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-century Maritime Silk Road in 2018. China will activate the heavy-lift launch vehicle project in next five years, according to the white paper. "Endeavors will be made to research key technologies and further study the plans for developing heavy-lift launch vehicles," said the document. Breakthroughs are expected in key technologies for the overall system, high-thrust liquid oxygen and kerosene engines, and oxygen and hydrogen engines of such launch vehicles. INT'L COOPERATION Since 2011 China has signed 43 space cooperation agreements or memoranda of understanding with 29 countries, space agencies and international organizations. China has taken part in relevant activities sponsored by the United Nations and other relevant international organizations, and supported international commercial cooperation in space. These measures have yielded fruitful results. In the next five years China will conduct extensive international exchanges and cooperation concerning space in several key areas, such as construction of the BRICS remote-sensing satellite constellation, and construction of the Belt and Road Initiative Space Information Corridor. Moreover, cooperative researches on space law, policy and standards and personnel exchanges will be further enhanced in the space field. "China always adheres to the principle that international exchanges and cooperation should be strengthened on the basis of equality and mutual benefit, peaceful utilization and inclusive development." the white paper said.
Mars could be getting closer and closer, if this science isn’t magic
A secret space race is out of the bag. It revolves around the so-called EmDrive propulsion system, which seems to cherry pick the laws of physics and science fiction, using some and defying others, to produce an engine capable of getting humans to the moon in 10 days, Mars in 10 weeks, without any fuel. A leaked paper from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was posted on line last month suggests that not only have researchers at Johnson Space Center in Houston been tinkering around with the idea, which a lot of people knew — but they have one that actually works. And now China has announced that it, too, has created a working prototype. It's one of the previously closely guarded experiments being conducted on the Tiangong-2 space Lab recently put in orbit. At a press conference in Beijing on Tuesday, researchers with the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) said the government has been funding the research for six years and all that the NASA results do is confirm what they have already achieved. CAST also plans to put their "impossible" reactionless engines to work powering satellites as soon as possible. The EmDrive engine defies Newton's Third Law of Motion — for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Jet engines burn fuel to power turbines to suck in air and blast it out backward to produce forward thrust. The EmDrive ejects no opposite-directed mass or particles to produce forward thrust. Instead, it bounces microwaves around inside a cone-shaped metal chamber, which, because of the shape, produces thrust at the wider end. The concept is for the unit to convert sunlight in space into the needed microwaves, making a self-sustaining power plant that never needs a refill. But it is the very defiance of Newton's law that has many skeptics dismissing the whole concept, saying there are probably other explanations for their experimental results — expansion from heating, for instance. "If the results are valid, it definitely points to a new physics," said Brice Cassenti, professor of engineering and an advanced propulsions systems expert at the University of Connecticut. But he added, "Newton's laws have already been shown not to apply" under certain conditions — high relative speeds, large gravitational fields, very small scale molecules. "There are certainly many aspects of physics that we do not understand," he told a college publication. "Some aspects are so mysterious that we don't even know where to begin." The NASA tested device was a closed copper cone whose interior was bombarded with controlled bursts of microwaves at 40, 60 and 80 watts, generating about 1.2 millinewtons of thrust per kilowatt (by contrast, the current state-of-the-art Hall thruster, which uses electricity to ionize propellants like xenon and krypton, produces 60 millinewtons per kilowatt, so the EmDrive's got some catching up to do). Still, EmDrive proponents remind us that they don't need any propellants and that alone, in a tortoise-and-hare kind of way, more than makes up for the difference. Jim Woodward, a physicist at California State-Fullerton, told Motherboard: "The issue involved here is whether the experiment is seeing something real or not." Violating the laws of physics is not something any scientist takes lightly. EmDrive's inventor, British scientist Roger Shawyer, argues that it has been known and acknowledged since the 1950s that radiation exerts pressure and does so when it enters the irregularly shaped chamber, basically pushing more on one end than on the other. In an elegant 15-minute slide presentation available on the internet, he lays out the science "to separate EmDrive operation from magic," as he puts it, actually using another of Newton's Laws (force equals mass times acceleration) to prove it. "EmDrive is based on standard physics and has been proved by experiment," he says, mapping out seven separate trials runs at five centers, including one in China. "It is now up to the space and defense world to demonstrate the many EmDrive applications and for commercial industry to capitalize on this technology," he concludes. Li Feng, chief designer at the China Academy of Space Technology's communication satellite division, said the technology being tested in orbit right now is "in the latter stages of the proof-of-principle phase" with the goal of making it available in satellites "as quickly as possible." "Although it is difficult to do this, we have the confidence that we will succeed," he said. The race is on. Contact the writer at chrisdavis@chinadailyusa.com.
Knowledge Graph
Examples
1 The Tiangong-2 should support three astronauts for around 20 days, while the Tiangong-3, which is due for launch in 2015, should support them for twice as long.
2 Tiangong-2 is neither designed nor planned to be a permanent orbital station; rather, it is intended as a testbed for key technologies that will be used in China's large modular space station, which is planned for launch in 2023.
3 Tiangong-2 was originally expected to be launched by the China National Space Agency by 2015 to replace the prototype module Tiangong-1, which was launched in September 2011.