China's better-than-Hubble space station could be the only one in operation by 2024
China's space station, set to be completed in 2022, will contain a core and two laboratory modules, the prototypes of which are currently being built. This was disclosed by Zhou Jianping, the chief designer of China's manned space program. Zhou is also a member of the 13th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's top political advisory body.
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The modules, each weighing about 20 tons, will form the shape of a "T." Inside those modules will be research facilities for studying space life and materials, microgravity, as well as basic physics and astronomy, Zhou said. The core module has five sockets, including one for cargo ships, two for manned spacecraft, and two for the space lab modules mentioned above.
"We plan to launch a testing core module around 2020 so as to test the key technologies for our space station. After that test, we will launch the lab module 1 and the lab module 2 to dock with the core module," said Zhou.
"We also have an important scientific facility--the optical module. It will carry a space telescope that has a 2-meter diameter lens with the same level of image resolution as the well-known Hubble telescope but has a field of view 300 times that of the Hubble. The optical module is being designed and made," Zhou added. With such a wide field of view, the space telescope could survey 40% of the cosmos in ten years.
The International Space Station (ISS) is currently the only space station in Earth's orbit and is set to retire in 2024. If China successfully establishes its own space station according to schedule, it'll be the only one in operation by 2024.
SOURCE: Ecns.cn (the official English-language website of China News Service or CNS); http://www.ecns.cn/2018/03-07/294821.shtml?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axioschina&stream=top-stories
Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)
Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.