SCIO briefing on China's Tiangong 2 and Shenzhou 11 manned space mission
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E-mail China.org.cn, November 19, 2016
FT:
The success of China's aerospace industry represents the success of technology and engineering. I'd like to ask, regarding China's Tiangong plan, how do you incorporate scientific and research plans into it? Would you please brief us on the experiments carried out during this space expedition?
Gao Ming:
In the Tiangong 2 space lab, we arranged space science experiments, earth science observation and application, and experiments on new space application technologies, among more than 10 experiment projects. The implementations of these projects are expected to lead to major breakthroughs and give subsequent benefits in our country's exploration of cutting-edge space science and the development of experiments. The experiments carried out on Tiangong 2 this time outnumbered all of China's previous manned space missions.
In detail, we carried out the following projects. The space cold atom clock carried out in Tiangong 2 is the world's first cold atom clock working in space. The project was to conduct basic research on cold atom physics, with an objective of maintaining the clock's daily stability within a range of 10−16, an international leading level. It could improve our spacecraft's autonomy punctuality and navigation precision by 1-2 orders of magnitude, meaning that the application will be important in this prospect. In previous in-orbit tests, we already managed to obtain the stability with a precision of 1.7×10−15. We will further adjust the parameters to try to reach our objective as soon as possible.
The gamma ray burst (GRB) polarization detection is a project we jointly carried out with Europe. As you may know, GRB polarization detection is a new channel for us to probe into GRB. The efficiency of our detecting device on Tiangong 2 is dozens of times higher than similar ones on the international market. By observing, we hope to obtain major achievements in unveiling the nature of GRB as well as the origin and evolution of the universe. So far we have managed to observe GRB, solar X-ray burst, and the pulse signal from the Crab Nebula Pulsars. We will continue with these observations and in the meantime, scientists will conduct analysis and research based on these scientific data.
We conducted an experiment on the accompanying satellite in Tiangong 2, the second accompanying satellite released from the spacecraft (the first was released from the Shenzhou 7 spacecraft). Equipped with an infrared camera and a visible camera operating at the level of 25 million pixels, the satellite completed its photographic mission when Shenzhou 11 combined with the space lab, observing the flight of the combination. Several experiments and tests were carried out, including that of the in-orbit release, the docking and the accompanying flight of the satellite, as well as new techniques used on the micro-satellite itself. At present, through these successful experiments, we have been able to obtain clear pictures of the spacecraft combination. The accompanying satellite has been dubbed a "selfie stick" by many netizens, and is really a wonderful tool.
In regards to Earth observation and various applications, we deployed imaging equipment, such as a multi-angle, broad-band imaging spectrograph, 3D imaging microwave altimeter and ultraviolet limb-imaging spectrometer, to observe the land, oceans and atmosphere of the Earth and test the remote sensing capabilities. The key components of this equipment, all independently developed by China, have reached a leading level in the world. In addition, new technical standards were adopted in the observation system, which remarkably enhanced their observation capability. The improvement will better assist in monitoring the global climate and environmental change, geological disasters and pollution and serve economic development when used in the agriculture, forestry and sea mining sectors. The preliminary tests showed that the observation equipment worked smoothly and steadily. They obtained abundant data and clear high-quality images that have been released on our data service platform. They will continue to finish the in-orbit tests before entering the stage of observation application.
Space science experiments, for example material growth and preparation in space and the fostering of higher plants, were carried out smoothly. The astronauts brought back samples of 12 types of materials and one plant species. We will conduct further research and analysis to discover the physical and chemical rules regarding material and plant growth in microgravity, laying a foundation for advancing material preparation techniques and improving plant species as well as researches on space ecological system.
Moreover, the programs of space environment detection and space-ground quantum key distribution test had made steady progress and yielded desirable results. Hopefully you will continue to pay attention to the application of the space lab. If you are interested, you can surf the websites of China Manned Space Program (http://en.cmse.gov.cn/), China Academy of Science (http://english.cas.cn/) and Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization (http://english.csu.cas.cn/), for more detailed information. We will release and update the latest results on those websites. Thank you.
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