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China's space program: Five things to know

Thursday, 14 December 2023 08:40
Chang'e-3, which carried a robotic rover, was China's first landing on the Moon
Chang'e-3, which carried a robotic rover, was China's first landing on the Moon.

When Chang'e-3 became the first Chinese craft to land on the moon 10 years ago, it kicked off nationwide celebrations—and a decade of major successes for a rapidly accelerating space program.

Since the December 14, 2013 landing, China has built a crewed space station, sent a robotic rover to Mars and become the first nation to make a controlled landing on the far side of the moon.

President Xi Jinping has described building China into a space power as "our eternal dream".

Here are five things to know about this space program:

A slow start

Chinese leader Mao Zedong declared his nation's space ambitions soon after the Soviet Union launched the world's first satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1957.

It took 13 years for China to launch its first satellite Dong Fang Hong, or "The East is Red"—named after the famous Communist revolutionary song it broadcast from orbit.

New instruments for Galileo’s tomorrow

Thursday, 14 December 2023 07:05
Team in charge of G2 new instruments

Galileo Second Generation is on the way with new and enhanced navigation satellites that will offer novel signals, services and even more precise positioning. But all the work being done to make it happen hinges on this single item at ESA’s Navigation Laboratory at ESTEC. The G2 test user receiver is designed to quantify the improvements the Second Generation will bring compared to current satellite navigation systems and will be used to verify the performance of early receivers processing the first G2 signals in space.

A launch date for Marcus Wandt

Thursday, 14 December 2023 06:53
Axiom 3 crew next to rocket
Artistic impression of ALISIO-1 satellite orbiting Earth

A satellite has been launched that will demonstrate the latest technologies for connectivity and for Earth observation. The ALISIO-1 satellite was developed under an ESA Pioneer Partnership Project with satellite manufacturer and operator Open Cosmos, based at Harwell in the UK.

Geminids meteor shower peaks this week under dark skies
The Geminid meteor shower lights up the night sky above Tybee Island, Ga., early Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017. The year’s best meteor shower, the Geminids, peaks this week, with lucky stargazers seeing as many as one or even two a minute in the darkest spots. The meteors will reach their frenzy Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023. Credit: Will Peebles/Savannah Morning News via AP, File

Dragon rider

Wednesday, 13 December 2023 16:01
Dragon rider Image: Dragon rider

Webb identifies tiniest free-floating brown dwarf

Wednesday, 13 December 2023 14:00

Discovery helps answer the question: How small can you go when forming stars?
Brown dwarfs are sometimes called failed stars, since they form like stars through gravitational collapse, but never gain enough mass to ignite nuclear fusion. The smallest brown dwarfs can overlap in mass with giant planets. In a quest to find the smallest brown dwarf, astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have found the new record-holder: an object weighing just three to four times the mass of Jupiter.

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