Countdown to China's 'Double Satellites Program'
2003-10-21 16:07
China’s first space exploration program -- the
“Geospace Double Satellites Exploration Program”
(GDSEP) has entered its final phase. According to Liu
Zhenxing, chief scientist on the program and academician at
the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) key breakthroughs
concerning the program have been made and China’s
first GDSEP satellite will be launched December, the second
one expected to be launched six months later.
Geospace refers to the flight area of various
satellites, space shuttles and space station.
The two satellites will operate in
polar and equatorial areas where international geospace
exploration satellites haven’t covered yet. Together
with four satellites of the "Satellite Cluster II
Mission" -- the most important exploration program of
the European Space Agency -- they will realize a
three-dimensional six-point probe over geospace for the
first time in human history.
Since the
first man-made satellite successfully launched in October
1957, nations have not stopped their exploration on
geospace. Scientists have called it the "fourth
field" which is closely associated with human
activities besides on land, sea and in the atmosphere.
The International Solar-Terrestrial
Physics Program (ISTP) put forward in the 1990s has
emphasized unprecedented international cooperation in this
area and conducts multi-satellites cooperative exploration
by treating sun-earth system as one.
International space circles believe
that the satellites of the ISTP Program have some
limitations in space distribution and that they are unable
to conduct effective exploration in equatorial and polar
areas.
In light of these limitations
and also because of the improvement of the nation’s
technology, a group of Chinese space scientists, led by Liu
Zhenxing, put forward the GDSEP at the beginning of 1997. It
was formally approved by the State Council in April 2002.
A few months after the GDSEP was put
forward, a group of ten experts, led by the director of
science of the European Space Agency came to visit the Space
Science and Application Research Center under the CAS, where
Liu Zhenxing works, to consider if the GDSEP was of
significance in the improvement of their "Satellite
Cluster Mission."
Liu Zhenxing is
full of confidence when talking about the GDSEP and says
that the program has attracted a wide response from the
international space community.
Through
cooperation with the European Space Agency, a large amount
of data on space exploration can improve China’s
innovative research of space physics. It will also promote
China’s status and influence in the international
space community and help foster new scientific professionals
of all levels.
According to Liu, the
researchers taking part in the GDSEP are all youth 45 years
old or under.
(China.org.cn by Wang
Qian, April 1, 2003)
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