China's Tiangong 1 Comming Down Early

(China's go at a permanent space presence) may come down earlier than originally thought. 

As it stands now, Tiangong 1, China’s first space laboratory, will come to a fiery end in late 2017. however  during a Sept. 14 news conference Chinese officials came close to admitting that they had lost control of the station, and as such have no control as to when the lab will enter Earth's Atmosphere or even impact the surface. (though in truth have not formally admitted the failure and in the opinion of satellite tracker Thomas Dorman, China will wait until the last minute to let the world know it has a problem with their space station.

more here

China's Yuto Rover Dead for Real This Time

China’s lunar rover Yutu has been pronounced dead—for the second and (probably) final time, this time after a bit over two-and-a-half years on the moon.

It’s unlikely that the rover is going to pop back from the dead this time, though. Jade Rabbit (which is Yuto in Chinese) was only meant to last for three months and ended up lasting 31 months. In that time, the rover was slowly losing functionality. Towards the end of the rover's life, it slowly lost the ability to even move away from its current spot. Even so, Jade Rabbit continued to beam back data to researchers

For complete Gizmoto article - click  HERE

Long March Bivouacs Unannounced

On August 27, at 4:06 AM Eastern Time, The home-owner became aware of forced entry.  Investigation proved to be the mother of all break-ins.  

The unwelcome guest, the Chinese homeowner was experiencing proved to be the first stage engine from a  Long March 4C rocket.   The three-stage rocket in question  lifted off at 10:31 PM U.S. Eastern Time on Aug. 27.  It's mission: to launch China’s new Yaogan-27 satellite which was a success - however the first stage was jettisoned over northeast China’s Shanxi province.   Since the Taiyuan Launch Base is also in Shanxi Province  and completely land locked, its a given that this type of mishap was bound to happen at one time or another.   

The complete Gizmodo article can be found HERE

Death Rays Are Here To Stay......

Much as we would like that title to be some sort of weird musical, it isn't.

The Chinese military has a device called the Poly WB-1. It has the ability to concentrate  microwave beams.

To the Moon & Back

CNN reports that China, in the very near future, will launch a craft  to the moon and then return to Earth, landing in Mongolia, a first for China's space agency. 

Previous Luna missions included a rover called the Jade Rabbit, which was fraught with technical difficulties and was designated incapacitated. 

China has also had good success with its manned missions to low Earth orbit, sending up several individuals and teams, since 2003.  But it is the unmanned missions that will grab the headlines in the coming months.

Ultimately China is aiming at a Luna probe mission, dubbed Chang’e-4, to take place possibly in 2015. and the Chang'e-5 in 2017 that will put a rover on the surface to collect samples, then returning them to Earth.

Read the complete CNN article HERE

Short Vid of the Yutu Rover Seperating From Lander

China's Yutu rover separated from it's lander platform Chang'e 3 and successfully rolled several feet away showing that the system is healthy and ready to begin exploration of the Lunar surface. 

Here is a video of the translation from lander to ground.

Chang'e #3 is on the Moon!

Check out this YouTube video of China's Chang'e #3 Jade Rabbit as the probe/lander descends and lands on the moon. Got to admit, shades of Apollo here, as the craft descends, hovers, chooses a landing spot and lands. All captured on video.

According to the Popular Science article, Chang'e 3 didn't land where the engineers had chosen but in a much younger geological zone.

From the article HERE :
China's next plans are for craft, Chang'e 5 and Chang'e 6, that will be able to not only land on the moon, but also scoop up some samples and return again to Earth. the #4 craft is a backup for Chang'e 3.

 

China's Super Computer Retains Title of Fastest

 

China's Tianhe 2  which can operate at 33.863 trillion operations a second again retains it's title as world's fastest computer, a benchmark it set in June of 2013.  The benchmark is called the Linpack and it compiles it's list twice yearly.  

From the BBC News online article:

• It  (the linpack benchmark) measures how fast the computers can solve a special type of linear equation to determine their speed, but does not take account of other factors - such as how fast data can be transferred from one part of the system to another - which can also influence real-world performance.

IBM has five out of the top ten fastest computers believes that the test should be changed to reflect the way computers are used today.  For example the Linpack does not measure how fast data travels inside the computer.  This is very important on the usefulness of the system.  However officials from Linpack hint that the test changes would not take place. 

 Worlds top 10 fastest computers

1. Tianhe-2 (China) 33.86 petaflop/sec
2. Titan (US) 17.59 petaflop/sec
3. Sequoia (US) 17.17 petaflop/sec
4. K computer (Japan) 10.51 petaflop/sec
5. Mira (US) 8.59 petaflop/sec
6. Piz Daint (Swiss) 6.27 petaflop/sec
7. Stampede (US) 5.17 petaflop/sec
8. Juqueen (Germany) 5.09 petaflop/sec
9. Vulcan (US) 4.29 petaflop/sec
10. SuperMuc (Germany) 2.90 petaflop/sec
(Source: Top500 List based on Rmax Linpack benchmark)

China Has A What?!!

Yep, my little motorcycle dude hit me with another today.  Check this out....China has a space station.
Yeah you read that right - on June 13th just two days after launch, a Chinese Shenzhou 10 space capsule carrying a crew of three docked with the nation's orbiting Tiangong 1 space module .

According to the Space.com article the crew consisted of :

•  Nie Haisheng, Zhang Xiaoguang and Wang Yaping — the second female Chinese astronaut to fly in space 
  

Now for more DAMN I DIDN'T KNOW THAT! stuff..... This was China's fifth manned mission (oh come on!)  This is the last of three missions to test space based docking procedures.   The Tiangong 1 has been orbiting Earth since Sept. 2011. Its schedule calls for it to remain operational for another three months.  This crew is the second to dock with the module.  

China plans to take what they learn here and apply it to a larger station in 2020 which eventually have 3 interconnected modules.

Here is the link to the complete space.com article

Oldest Embryonic Dinosaur Bones Discovered

Scientists digging in China have discovered the earliest fossil embryos to date. The find includes
remains from many animals at different stages of development providing a unique opportunity to investigate the embryonic development of a prehistoric species.

the fossils were discovered in a bone bed in Lufeng County that dates to the Early Jurassic between 197 million to 190 million years ago.  The site contained more than 200 various bones as well as pieces of fossilized eggshells.

To put this discovery in perspective most of the dinosaur embryos on record are concentrated in the Late Cretaceous period.  This discovery  takes a detailed record of dinosaur embryology and pushes it back over 100 million years!

From the Nature.com article:

• But it is not just the age of the fossils that is notable, the researchers say. Spectroscopic analysis of bone-tissue samples from the Chinese nesting site revealed the oldest organic material ever seen in a terrestrial vertebrate.

China Succeeds With It's First Manned Docking

Going through the IO9 blog articles I was blown away to discover that China has an orbiting space lab called Tiangong-1. Not afraid to admit I dropped the ball on this one! But I degress, China in the early hours of June 18th 2012 succeeded in docking with Tiangong-1. This makes it one of only three countries behind the USA and Russia. The three person crew consisted of taikonauts Jing Heipeng, Liu Wang and Liu Yang, China's first woman in space.

China is aiming towards a space station in 2020, which may not be too ambitious for their program considering that this was only their fourth manned mission.

Space.com article here

China Still Aiming for a Manned Moon Mission

Here is a cool IO9 article concerning China's continuing plans and efforts to put a man on the Moon.

The Chinese report really hasn't said anything new.  Speculation has it that they are still looking at putting a man on the surface of the Moon by  2025.  Even talks this vague has some people speculating about the future of American space efforts.  I have to side with those concerns.  The USA has abdicated it's place as a manned power in space.  The corpse just doesn't know enough to lay down yet.  Harsh yes, but no less true.

Former NASA administrator Michael Griffin continues to be actively vocal about NASA's lack of foresight and enthusiasm for a manned presence.  Griffin  has gone on record saying that China's space efforts would "leave the United States in its wake;"

Griffin said  at NASA oversight committee meeting last September: (from the article)

• In my opinion, China understands what it takes to be a great power...They are a near-peer competitor of ours and I would worry very much about the future of this nation if we were not — and if we were not seen by all — to be a world leader.

read the IO9 article here

"Don Quijote" Tilting At Asteroids Now

Remember the Apophis asteroid? The 1,600-foot-wide near-Earth asteroid which NASA said had a chance of around one in 250,000 of hitting Earth in 2036. Well it seems that ESA's Don Quijote spacecraft is going to take a whack at it in 2015, with the hopes that it can deflect the asteroid.

Don Quijote only weighs in at 1,100 pounds but it will be traveling at six miles a second so there is a chance that it might have a miniscule effect. Me? I would have to say that 250k in 1 against a hit, would be something to leave alone. Even though it is going very fast, the added energy is not going to matter much.

However that has not stopped China from weighing in with the same stunt! A team at Beijing's Tsinghua University, is planning to send a tiny 20-some-pound on a reverse orbit with gravity assist from Earth and smack Apophis doing 200k mph! Check out that story here


Apophis info here

China's First Space Station Readies For Launch

Remember that fine speech that the director of NASA gave about the US dominance in space due to the great foundation they had already laid? Wonder if he is starting to choke on those words yet? Cause I was just reading an article on The Daily Galaxy where China is preparing its' Tiangong-1 space station for lift off aboard a Long March II-F carrier booster later this year. Followed later by an unpiloted Shenzhou-8 spacecraft to test their ability to dock with each other. This will be China's first attempt at just such a maneuver.

Read more on The China Daily web page

Chinese censors ban time travel TV shows

Yep, you read the headline correctly! From Cory Doctorow @ Boing Boing blog:

• The Chinese General Bureau of Radio, Film and Television has prohibited new science fiction TV dramas, following a vogue for shows where modern Chinese people travel to ancient China. They've also prohibited production of "the Four Great Classical Novels", on the grounds that the widespread adaptations of them take too many liberties with the original texts.

It would appear that in China, the time-travel themed drama is becoming more and more popular. Many of the time-travel stories and movies are based on real historical, but there is a growing trend to exaggerated events to add humor to the narrative. Many thing this is exceedingly funny while others aggravated by the lack of respect of the historical texts and now there is a trend to completely make up historical events. Hence the raised ire of the Bureau.

Check the complete text here

China's Space launch news is FAKETASTIC!

News of China's successful launch of it's first space walk flight hit the web hours before the actual launch of the rocket. Creepier still was that the news release had transcripts of conversations between the astronauts and mission control. Shades of Capricorn 1 huh guys? Like the Yahoo News article said - "No wonder (people) think we never went to the Moon!" Said to be a technical glitch, it still means that reports of the whole event were to be completely manufactured and have no relationship to the actual mission! Gizmodo has it right - they exclaim "Faketastic!"

<- Yahoo News via Gizmodo ->

China says moon pictures not faked from NASA

Wow, you got to love this! As most of you know, China launched its first lunar probe, the Chang'e 1, in October. After a sucessful launch, the Chinese space agency released a photo featuring a patch of grey moon surface with the requisite amount of craters.....or so it would seem. Astute Chinese internet users soon cried foul though. It seems the photo that was released is almost a carbon copy of a photo released by NASA years ago! What makes this even weirder is that the Chinese photo has what appears to be photoshopped craters added in. (no I am not making this up! LOL)

The Chinese scientist insist that the photo is genuine and that the reason that the photos are alike is that the probe's camera was pointed in the same area on the Moon. As for the extra crater well, China says that The American photo was not of significant resolution to resolve the smaller structures.

Click here for the complete article

photo Reuters

Robert J. Sawyer wins China's Galaxy Award for Most Popular Foreign Author

SFScope reports that Canadian author Robert J. Sawyer won China's top science-fiction award, the Galaxy Award, in the category "Most Popular Foreign Author of the Year." The award, voted on by Chinese readers, was presented at the Chengdu International Science Fiction and Fantasy Festival on 26 August.







photo from SFScope

Engineers unveil China moon rover

Chinese scientists have shown off a prototype Moon rover that could lead to the country's first unmanned mission to the lunar surface in 2012. The 1.5m (5ft) high, 200kg (440lbs) rover should transmit video in real time, dig into and analyse soil, and produce 3D images of the lunar surface. Though noticably similar in design to the NASA Mars rovers, the Chinese Moon rover may have a few radically different components. Unlike the solar-rechargeable lithium-ion batteries used by the US space agency's (Nasa) Mars rovers, the Chinese model will eventually run on a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Such devices convert heat from a radioactive source into electricity.

Submitted by Shaun A. Saunders

Russia, China aim for Red Planet

China will launch a joint mission with Russia to Mars, a "milestone" in space co-operation between the two countries. The move follows pledges by Moscow to work more closely with the Chinese on missions to Mars and the Moon. A small satellite developed by China will piggyback on the Russian launch of a spacecraft called "Phobos Grunt", probably in October 2009. There was no mention of a timetable in the Chinese space agency statement. But earlier Russian reports said the launch window for the 10-11 month voyage to Phobos, Mars' largest moon, will be in October 2009. The mission plan so far is to have the Russian craft orbit Mars. Then the Chinese micro-satellite will detach from the Russian spacecraft, and probe the Martian space environment. The Russian spacecraft will touch down on the Martian moon Phobos and collect soil samples for return to Earth.

submitted by Shaun A. Saunders