China Space Station to Host over 1,000 Research Projects
More than 1,000 research projects will be carried out at the Tiangong space station, China's national space lab, over the next 10 to 15 years, according to the China Manned Space Engineering Office.
At the end of last year, the office released the first report on the progress made in scientific research and applications related to China's space station to celebrate the two-year anniversary of the comprehensive completion of the space station.
According to the report, China has planned four major research areas in space: space life and human body research, microgravity physics, space astronomy and earth science, and space new technologies and applications, covering 32 research topics.
As of December 1, 2024, a total of 181 scientific and application projects have been implemented in orbit.
"In space life science, we have conducted a large number of studies on plants, animals, microorganisms and cells. In terms of plants, we have realized the first full-life-cycle cultivation of rice from germination to reproduction in the world, and the samples returned have been planted in the fields on Earth. We have also built and studied a binary ecosystem composed of zebrafish and hornwort in space, laying a good foundation for our future research on vertebrates, especially on bone loss and muscle atrophy. On refractory alloys, especially multielement alloy materials that are difficult to melt on the ground, we have conducted research under containerless conditions in space, laying the foundation for our development of important alloys such as aircraft engine blade materials in the future," said Zhang Wei, a researcher of the Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The first batch of space science, application experiments, and technological trials carried out at the Chinese space station have made significant progress with fruitful original, cutting-edge and innovative outcomes, according to Zhang.
Scientific teams in various fields have published over 500 high-level papers listed on the Science Citation Index (SCI), and obtained more than 150 patents. Some achievements have been applied, thereby driving the rapid advancement of China's space science and applications.
In the near future, a large number of cutting-edge experiments will be carried out at the space station, including an experiment on the development of mouse embryos in space and researches on new materials and space astronomy.
"We have made plans on research, development and production of various kinds of materials in space, including high-entropy alloys, which are alloys formed by five or more elements, scintillator crystals, semiconductor crystals and other kinds of functional crystals. In space astronomy, we will launch major flagship facilities such as the China Space Station Telescope and the High Energy cosmic-Radiation Detection facility. We hope that after they are launched in the future, there will be a large number of scientific discoveries in major cutting-edge fields such as the origin and evolution of the universe and life, and the search for exoplanets, representing Chinese contributions," Zhang said.
China launched the Shenzhou-19 crewed spaceship on Oct. 30, 2024, sending three astronauts—including the country's first female space engineer—to its orbiting space station for a six-month mission.
Duration: 2 minutes
Release Date: Jan. 16, 2025
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