Quick viewing(Text Mode)

A New Dawn for China's Space Scientists

A New Dawn for China's Space Scientists

NEWSFOCUS

In the hot seat. The crew of 9 prepares for ’s fi rst mission to dock with aboard.

A New Dawn for China’s Space Scientists

China’s crewed space program has won admiration for the engineering mer governor Bo Xilai and the high-profi le on April 22, 2013 prowess on display earlier this week in the mission. fl ight of blind activist Chen Guangcheng. For the party, the elegant pas de deux at 343 kilo- Upcoming science missions hope to steal some of the spotlight meters above Earth’s surface was a timely triumph. “China’s space pro- BEIJING—When Shenzhou 9 gently fi red its moment: Shenzhou’s former chief designer, gram gives the party legitimacy,” Cheng thrusters to pull to within several centime- . “I wasn’t nervous,” he claims. says. “The leaders can say, ‘Look what we ters of the orbiting Tiangong module on 24 Shenzhou’s fi rst fl ight in 1999, Qi says, was have done for the country.’ ” June, mission managers were on edge. For a far riskier roll of the dice. That landmark The engineering feat is indisputable.

a fleeting moment, a question hung in the mission went well, as did the Shenzhou 9 “China is emerging as a world leader in www.sciencemag.org air: Would the astronauts succeed in China’s docking maneuvers, completing a milestone space,” says Mark Stokes, executive direc- fi rst attempt to manually dock the two space- on China’s road to a sustained human pres- tor of the Project 2049 Institute, a think tank craft, circling Earth at 7.8 kilometers per sec- ence in space. “It’s a huge step,” says Dean in Arlington, Virginia, that produced an ond? They’d performed the maneuver on the Cheng, an expert on China’s space program analysis of China’s space program last April ground, in a simulator, hundreds of times with the Heritage Foundation in Washing- for the U.S.-China Economic and Security before. This was the real test. The slightest ton, D.C. “Docking is essential to doing just Review Commission. SCIENCE miscalculation could have spelled disaster for about anything in space,” he says, including Soon, China’s basic researchers will take Downloaded from Shenzhou’s three-person crew, including the China’s plan to build a by 2020. a star turn. Over the next several years, the country’s fi rst female . No country China’s leaders had a lot riding on Shen- country plans to launch fi ve scientifi c mis- had lost someone in space—and China didn’t zhou 9, too. The Communist Party, which sions, including a dark-matter probe and an want to be the fi rst. is expected to begin a leadership transition attempt at long-distance quantum commu- One person with a big stake in the mis- this autumn, spent the fi rst half of 2012 in nication. Four more innovative missions are

sion says he was not sweating out that tense damage-control mode over the fall of for- in the design stage, Science has learned: an CREDITS: (TOP) QIN XIANAN/COLOR CHINAIMAGES;RIGHT) PHOTO/AP LEFT TO BETTMANN/ (BOTTOM CORBIS/AP IMAGES; R. STONE/

MILESTONES 1955 1970 OF CHINA’S SPACE PROGRAM

Space program founder returns Debut Dongfanghong 1 broadcasts home to a hero’s welcome. “The East is Red.”

1630 29 JUNE 2012 VOL 336 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org Published by AAAS NEWSFOCUS

x-ray telescope to study black holes, a time,” says Qi, now a dean at Beijing Univer- imager that would swing high above and far sity of Aeronautics and Astronautics. China below the line of sight between Earth and the turned to the for help; hundreds , a space-based very-long-baseline inter- of engineers poured in. Key facilities were set ferometer (VLBI) tuned to long-millimeter up across the hinterlands to avoid offering fat wavelengths, and a four-satellite cluster to targets. But several months after embarking study coupling of the magnetosphere, iono- on this vast enterprise, China, strapped for sphere, and thermosphere. Scientific pay- cash, aborted its space program to focus on loads are being assembled for Tiangong 1 guided missiles. and for two more Tiangong modules, includ- Qian bided his time working on weap- ing a crewed space laboratory, which China ons. Then, in a report to top leaders in 1965, plans to launch in the next 3 years. And sci- Qian argued that China needed to reboot its entists are designing experiments for the space program because were indis- future space station. pensable for military surveillance and com- It’s a new dawn for China’s space scien- munication. The government concurred and tists. For decades, they have been left in the revived its space program. By then, though, shadows by the generals and engineers who the Sino-Soviet split meant that China had run China’s space program. China’s sole ded- to go it alone. “They weren’t talking to any- icated science missions to date were Double one, not the Soviets, certainly not the Amer- Star, in which it teamed up with the Euro- icans,” Cheng says. That’s why, he says, pean Space Agency (ESA) from 2003 to “much of China’s space program is domesti- 2007 to study magnetic storms, and the ill- cally produced.” fated Mars probe Yinghuo-1, which failed to After a failed attempt in 1969, China on leave Earth . 24 April 1970 put its fi rst satellite in orbit, on April 22, 2013 “When I look at astronomy textbooks, becoming only the fi fth country to do so. For none of the discoveries were made by people 1 month, Dongfanghong 1 took readings of working in China. I don’t see a single photo the and transmitted data back to taken by a Chinese telescope. It’s very frus- Earth. In a patriotic touch, it broadcast the trating,” says Zhang Shuang-Nan, an astro- song “The East is Red,” for which it was physicist here at the Institute of High Energy named. “It was a simple satellite,” says Qi, Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences All systems go. Shenzhou 9 lifts off on 16 June. who served on the engineering team. But the (CAS). “We feel more and more pressure, not 1-meter-wide debutante, heavier than the fi rst

just from the top, but also from the bottom, genius by his peers, Qian, known in the United satellites of the Soviet Union, , www.sciencemag.org to produce knowledge,” adds Wu Ji, direc- States by the older spelling of his name, Hsue- France, and Japan combined, made a power- tor general of CAS’s National Space Science Shen Tsien, fell victim to the Red Scare and in ful statement. Center (NSSC). With the raft of missions now 1950 was accused of being a Communist. The China then set its sights on a crewed in the works, they may end up not just revising United States revoked his security clearance program—but didn’t get very far. “There but rewriting textbooks. and—after 5 years of house arrest—exiled were some key technical problems beyond him to China. Qian returned home to a hero’s our ability at that time,” Qi says. In 1975, Rags to riches welcome and soon proposed that the young he recalls, “Premier Zhou Enlai convinced Downloaded from The visionary who set China’s sights on space nation start a missile program. us to not try to match the Soviet Union and also played a key role in the early days of the A year after a small team set to work, the U.S., and fi rst develop more satellites.” U.S. program. In the 1940s, Chinese-born Soviet Union shocked the world on 4 October China hatched plans for a new crewed pro- aeronautical engineer Qian Xuesen was one 1957 with the launch of 1, the world’s gram in 1986. Work began in earnest in 1992, of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Labo- fi rst artifi cial satellite. China wanted one, too. the year that Qi succeeded Qian as China’s

CREDITS: (TOP) ZZHANG LEI/COLOR CHINA/AP IMAGES AP PHOTO/XINHUA; (BOTTOM, LEFT TO RIGHT) AP PHOTO/EUGENE HOSHIKO; (INSET) IGNAT SOLOVEY/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; AP PHOTO/ZHA CHUNMING AP PHOTO/ZHA COMMONS; SOLOVEY/WIKIMEDIA IGNAT (INSET) HOSHIKO; AP PHOTO/EUGENE RIGHT) TO LEFT (BOTTOM, PHOTO/XINHUA; AP IMAGES CHINA/AP LEI/COLOR ZZHANG (TOP) CREDITS: ratory in Pasadena, California. Considered a “However, we didn’t even have a at that general spacecraft designer. Sanctions on

1999 2003 2003

Shenzhou 1 marks the start of the crewed Liwei Earth for 21 hours aboard is the fi rst bona fi de space space program. . science mission.

www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 336 29 JUNE 2012 1631 Published by AAAS NEWSFOCUS

Entangled Secret Messages From Space says, will also be a platform for fundamental experiments probing the nature —Last summer, a stream of photons arced northwest across of entanglement, dismissed by Albert Einstein as “spooky action a distance,” Qinghai Lake—China’s biggest—traveling about 100 kilometers in the over unprecedented distances. If it succeeds, China intends to deploy a fl eet blink of an eye before impinging on a detector on the opposite shore. This of spacecraft that could make global quantum communication a reality. was no ordinary beam of light: The photons were entangled, meaning they Potential users would include commercial banks and China’s armed forces. were produced in pairs with identical quantum states. At Qinghai, measur- China’s program is building on a steady stream of homegrown advances in ing the entangled pairs provided a key that could be used to unlock a coded generating entangled photons and quantum- message, decipherable to only those who know the photon pair’s quan- key distribution over the past decade. In tum state. The beauty is that any attempt to read the key alters it, mak- 2004, Pan’s group transmitted entangled ing it theft-proof. The technology is expected to become the gold standard photons from a mountaintop to the ground of cryptography. Several groups have tested quantum communications on near Hefei, demonstrating quantum-key dis- Earth. But Qinghai was a proving ground for distributing quantum keys in tribution in the atmosphere. At that point, he the fi nal frontier: space. says, “We started to think very seriously about About 5 years from now, China plans to launch a spacecraft that will doing this in space.” The research is demand- transmit entangled photon pairs to ground receivers. The European Space ing. “We are working at the single-photon Agency may deploy a similar system on the International Space Station, and level. It’s invisible to the eye,” Pan says. In scientists in Canada and Singapore have proposed quantum microsatellites. 2011, his team was the fi rst to entangle eight China is moving faster. “We hope we will be the fi rst real experiment in photons at once. That feat “was really out- space,” says the Chinese project’s leader, Pan Jianwei, a physicist at the Uni- standing,” Zeilinger says. “It required some elegant ideas.” versity of Science and Technology of China in Hefei. His team faces daunting Crucial to the satellite effort, Pan’s team is becoming defter at generat- challenges in sending quantum keys across great distances. But few scientists ing multiphoton entanglement. “The probability of creating a four-photon in China come more highly rated. “In quantum communication and multi- entanglement is small,” Pan says. In 2004, they managed a few four-photon on April 22, 2013 photon quantum optics, he’s certainly in the top echelon,” says quantum events per second. Now, he says, they churn out a few thousand per second. physicist Anton Zeilinger, whose group at the University of Vienna has distrib- To devise their high-intensity entangled photon source, Pan says, “We had to uted quantum keys by laser more than 144 kilometers in the Canary Islands develop some new technology and use some new tricks.” and will participate in China’s quantum-spacecraft project. The satellite, he They put these tricks to work in a real-life setting in 2008. That year, Pan’s

high-tech exports to China forced Qi’s team tion of space, in China the army has always Rising from the ashes to toil in isolation. As a result, he says, China run the show. For that reason, China’s ulti- On 9 November 2011, China thought it was on

“spent too much time and resources” devel- mate intentions are debated (see p. 1634). its way to the Red Planet. Early that morning, www.sciencemag.org oping the Shenzhou spacecraft, the work- One concern is that China’s space-industrial launched the Fobos-Grunt spacecraft horse of the crewed program. “On one hand, complex is bigger than any other country’s. on a rocket with the aim of landing on we felt uncomfortable about the restrictions. Two state-owned space enterprises together Mars and returning 200 grams of soil to Earth On the other hand, those restrictions helped employ more than 267,000 people. Add in in 2014. China was hitching a ride. A small us a lot,” Qi says. “Although our spacecraft staff at space-related R&D institutes and probe called Yinghuo-1, built by CAS’s Cen- may not be the best, we successfully made it university-based researchers, and the num- ter for Space Science and Applied Research, by ourselves.” The second watershed event of ber of Chinese involved in the space pro- would separate from Fobos-Grunt before the Downloaded from China’s space program came in 2003, when gram may top 300,000. This gargantuan spacecraft entered Mars orbit. Its aim was to Shenzhou 5 carried astronaut into ground force has propelled China into the take the detailed measurements yet of orbit. China became the third country to inde- upper echelon of spacefaring nations. China the planet’s magnetic fi eld. “It really was our pendently send a person into space. “is one of the elite,” Cheng says. dream to go with the ,” says Wu, who While other spacefaring nations have set China’s space science community hasn’t led the Yinghuo-1 design team.

up civilian agencies for peaceful explora- gotten there quite yet. Seconds after Fobos-Grunt had separated COMMONS CREDITS: (TOP) DONGDONG;LEFT TO RIGHT): ZHANG (BOTTOM NASAIMAGES; IMAGINECHINA VIA AP IMAGES; SPACEBABE/WIKIMEDIA

2007 2008 2010

Lunar exploration program kicks off with goes for a 22-minute spacewalk Chang’e 2 maps future lunar landing sites. Chang’e 1. outside of .

1632 29 JUNE 2012 VOL 336 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org Published by AAAS group distributed quantum keys to three stations linked by 20 kilometers of fi ber-optic cable. The keys were used to decipher encrypted phone conversations between the stations. That approach works fi ne for short distances, such as within a city, but the transmission effi ciency by fi ber optics diminishes with distance. “Beyond 100 kilo- meters, the loss is huge,” Pan says. Quantum-key distri- bution between cities and continents will require exploit- ing the vacuum of space, where there is no photon loss. Cryptography’s new frontier. In a trial run for a space-based experiment in quantum Pan’s achievements are all the more impressive con- communication, a team led by Pan Jianwei (left) beamed entangled photons across sidering that he started out as a theorist. After joining Qinghai Lake in northwest China last summer. Zeilinger’s lab to pursue his doctorate in 1996, Pan was intrigued by the group’s hands-on work. “It took him a while to get used to the way we do experiments,” Zeilinger recalls. “But he is huge. We have to make sure the quantum signal can be transferred to the started coming up with his own ideas, and I realized this guy had talent.” right point,” adds Pan, whose team is devising the payload here at a new Thanks to his stellar work, Pan was elected to the Chinese Academy of Sci- branch campus of his university. ences last year at the tender age of 41, becoming one of the youngest aca- If all goes well, Pan envisions a network of satellites that would function demicians ever in China. as repeater stations for global coverage. Although China’s quantum space- Pan will have to scale new heights to succeed in space. The quantum- craft is a civilian project, military programs have a keen interest in unbreak- mechanical principles themselves are straightforward—at least to the able encrypted communications; U.S. efforts in satellite-based quantum researchers. The key hurdle will be the exquisitely precise timing necessary to communication appear to be classifi ed. Even if a government agency ran allow two ground receivers to measure the quantum state of entangled pairs the system, civilian information would be impervious to eavesdropping. on April 22, 2013 at exactly the same moment. “That’s very demanding,” says Zeilinger, whose “The satellite owner can only allow you or not allow you to communicate. group will use receivers across to tune in to China’s spacecraft. For Once they allow you, they cannot see the message. There is no way,” Pan says. only a few minutes at a time, he says, stations in Europe and China can simul- That may reassure Bank of America—but the Pentagon may not welcome a taneously view the satellite. “The satellite will be fl ying very fast. The distance Chinese quantum-cryptography capability with open arms. –R.S.

from the rocket, the spacecraft’s thrusters make the country stand out not just for aero- a soft landing on the moon since the Soviet failed to execute a burn properly, stranding it nautical engineering but for discoveries in Union’s Luna mission in 1976. It will roll out

and its piggybacked companion in low Earth space science, as well. a rover that will analyze soil samples and set www.sciencemag.org orbit. Over the next several days, controllers at Until now, most other science missions up an extreme ultraviolet telescope—the fi rst the Lavochkin Association in Moscow, which have languished as mere proposals. Although astronomical observatory on the moon. Some designed Fobos-Grunt, attempted to com- the fi rst two spacecraft launched under Chi- offi cials have talked of a crewed lunar land- municate with the spacecraft to set it back on na’s lunar exploration program—Chang’e 1 ing after 2020, but that adventure is not set course, but to no avail. Fobos-Grunt plunged in 2007 and Chang’e 2 in 2010—carried in stone. The rationale for such a mission, Qi back through the atmosphere on 15 January, scientifi c instruments, they “were more for says, “is being hotly debated.” broke apart, and disappeared over the Pacifi c prestige and engineering than for science,” Heralding a new era for space science, on Downloaded from Ocean. “It was very disappointing. A really Wu says. After mapping future landing sites, 3 May 2011, Wu announced that CAS will big blow for our science,” Wu says. Chang’e 2 is now en route for a flyby of undertake fi ve scientifi c missions in the com- Wu’s chagrin may prove short-lived. In 4179 Toutatis, a potentially hazardous aster- ing years (Science, 20 May 2011, p. 904). the months before the Fobos-Grunt disaster, oid that will whiz close to Earth at the end CAS has budgeted $554 million over 5 years China had already begun drafting blueprints of the year. Chang’e 3, scheduled for launch for the missions and established NSSC last

CREDITS: (TOP) I JIAN-WEI PAN; (BOTTOM LEFT TO RIGHT) MAGINECHINA VIA AP IMAGES; AP PHOTO/ RUSSIAN ROSCOSMOC SPACE AGENCY, HO; SUN ZIFA/COLOR CHINA PHOTO/AP IMAGES CHINA PHOTO/AP SUN ZIFA/COLOR HO; AGENCY, RIGHT) LEFT TO MAGINECHINA (BOTTOM VIA AP IMAGES; AP PHOTO/ RUSSIAN ROSCOSMOC SPACE CREDITS: (TOP) I JIAN-WEIPAN; for a space science program that, it hopes, will in 2013, will be the fi rst spacecraft to make year to oversee the burgeoning program.

2011 2011 2012

Tiangong module is the fi rst step toward the Yinghuo-1 is destroyed aboard the doomed Shenzhou 9 heralds an era of sustained space station. Fobos-Grunt Mars probe (pictured). presence in space.

www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 336 29 JUNE 2012 1633 Published by AAAS NEWSFOCUS

Astrophysics is set to take center stage. scrutinize them in greater detail, “Although our First off the blocks should be the Hard X-ray he says. Astrophysicists around spacecraft may Modulation Telescope (HXMT), conceived the world have been clamoring for nearly 20 years ago to observe black holes, just such a telescope, but early last not be the best, neutron stars, and other objects based on their year NASA and ESA canceled we successfully x-ray and ray emissions. HXMT, plans for an International X-ray made it by our- China’s first astronomy satellite, could be Observatory, and a scaled-down launched as early as 2014 and will be the fi rst version called Athena lost out to a selves.” of three instruments in China’s Black Hole Jupiter probe in an ESA competi- —QI FAREN, Probe Program. Another mission incubating tion which concluded last month. SHENZHOU CHIEF for years that now has a green light is KuaFu, XTP would study x-ray emis- DESIGNER a Sino-Canadian mission to study the sun’s sions from matter spiraling into a infl uence on space weather. Russia may join black hole, or x-ray signatures of frame-drag- whose effective diameter is the maximum dis- KuaFu, pegged for a 2015 launch along with ging generated, for instance, as a spinning tance between the instruments. They would Shijian 10, a spacecraft that will study the black hole tugs at spacetime. “We’ll look at follow in the footsteps of Japan, which oper- effects of strong radiation and microgravity the physics of extreme conditions,” Zhang ated a space-based array from 1997 to 2002, on organisms and materials. says. For now, XTP is a purely Chinese mis- and Russia, which is now testing its Spektr-R Work is also progressing on radio telescope launched last year. two later launches. One is the lead China’s proposed array would probe in China’s Dark Matter Detec- China’s Space Astronomy Takes initially consist of two long-mil- tion Program. The spacecraft, being limeter-wavelength antennas, designed by CAS’s Purple Moun- Black Hole Probe Program each 10 meters wide. Key chal- •Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT) tain Observatory in Nanjing, aims to •Space Variable Objects Monitor satellite lenges include getting the space register gamma rays generated when •Gamma-ray Burst Polarization (POLAR) experiment (aboard Tiangong) antennas to work with high point- on April 22, 2013 dark-matter particles annihilate each Diagnostics of Astro-Oscillations Program ing accuracy and having enough other. The fi fth mission in the works, •X-ray Timing and Polarization (XTP) satellite bandwidth to transmit scientifi c the Quantum Science Satellite, is data, says Hong Xiaoyu, direc- Portraits of Astrophysical Objects Program designed to transmit entangled pho- •Space Very Long Baseline Interferometer (VLBI) telescope array tor of the Shanghai Astronomical tons between a spacecraft and receiv- Observatory, which is designing Dark Matter Detection Program ing stations on Earth (see p. 1632). •Dark Matter Detection Satellite the system and is open to inter- Success would mark a fi rst step in •High Energy Cosmic Radiation Detection Facility (aboard space station) national collaboration. The top secure intercontinental quantum Solar Physics Program priority would be to map the communication. •KuaFu fine structure of supermassive www.sciencemag.org Four more missions that have •Solar Polar Orbit Radio Telescope (SPORT) black holes that inhabit the cen- passed preliminary reviews would •Space ter of galaxies and their accre- considerably build up China’s clout tion disks, which are believed in spaceborne astrophysics. The goal to be the power source for is to get them launched in the next 5-year plan, sion. But China is exploring teaming up with active galactic nuclei. Ten years after beginning in 2016. One is the X-ray Timing Germany, which is contemplating a scaled- the fi rst array, Hong says, his team hopes to and Polarization (XTP) telescope, conceived down Athena called Gravitas. A big attrac- launch millimeter-wave antennas. Longer Downloaded from by CAS’s Institute of High Energy Physics. tion for China is that Germany could equip baselines and shorter wavelengths produce As the lead facility in the planned Diagnostics a joint probe with a much more advanced a higher resolution of radio sources. of Astro-Oscillations Program, XTP would mirror; restrictions on the sale of high-tech China also hopes to blaze a trail in inter- be “a much more powerful mission that goes equipment to China would force Zhang’s planetary physics. NSSC is designing a solar far beyond HXMT,” says Zhang, the proj- team to commission an inferior Chinese- probe that would receive a gravity assist from ect’s leader. XTP would have a larger collec- made mirror. Jupiter, which would send it into a highly tion area and powerful mirrors to collect more As the centerpiece of the Portraits of Astro- inclined orbit above and below the ecliptic photons—and thus observe fainter objects and physical Objects Program, China intends to plane, the line of sight between Earth and the invest its long-standing exper- sun. Only one previous satellite has followed “ When I look at tise in VLBI in new space radio a similar orbit: Ulysses, an ESA-U.S. probe telescopes. Its current VLBI launched in 1990 that measured a steady astronomy text- network consists of four large, weakening of the solar and helped pin- books, none of the ground-based dishes; three point sources of gamma ray bursts. NSSC’s times a year, two of its dishes Solar Polar Orbit Radio Telescope (SPORT) discoveries were team up with the European would be the fi rst to gaze down or up at cor- made by people VLBI Network for monthlong onal mass ejections streaming from the sun. observation runs. China’s plan Besides probing the properties of the solar working in China.” calls for spacecraft that would wind and coronal mass ejections, Wu says, —ZHANG SHUANG-NAN, operate in tandem or as arrays SPORT’s spectacular bird’s-eye view should INSTITUTE OF HIGH ENERGY with ground dishes, mimick- improve forecasts of space weather.

CREDIT: (TOP ANDZHANG BOTTOM) DONGDONG CREDIT: PHYSICS, BEIJING ing a huge radio telescope The fourth new mission to pass mus-

www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 336 29 JUNE 2012 1635 Published by AAAS NEWSFOCUS

ter is MIT, named for the magnetosphere, A bevy of experiments are now being 450-ton International Space Station, China’s ionosphere, and thermosphere. The four- readied for Tiangong, including an atomic space station should host high-powered sci- spacecraft cluster, another NSSC brainchild, clock, a materials science furnace, and a ence. China Manned Space Engineering would attempt to shed light on how electrons plant tissue culture apparatus. Astrophysi- Offi ce is expected to approve the fi rst pay- and other energetic particles fl ow between cists also have reason to cheer. Among the loads from among dozens of contenders those regions of space. approved projects, China and Switzerland early next year. Among those vying for space To maintain the momentum of China’s are teaming up on POLAR, a gamma ray are a suite of astronomy experiments called suddenly vibrant space science the Cosmic Lighthouse Pro- program, NSSC is about to call gram. One of two proposed for proposals for another slate of large instruments is the High missions—up to three more, Wu Energy Cosmic Radiation says—that would be funded after Detection Facility to study 2015. Unlike in Europe or the dark matter and cosmic rays. United States, the price tag won’t The other instrument be a showstopper. “In China, the would allow China to play a decision process may be slow, major role in the coming era but once a mission is approved, of large-scale astronomical it will go,” Zhang says. “We surveys—and possibly help haven’t had a mission canceled unravel the nature of dark because of the budget.” energy. China’s wide-field They do face one big optical telescope would com- impediment: limited plement planned instruments interactions with elsewhere, such as the Large colleagues abroad, Synoptic Survey Telescope on April 22, 2013 especially those (LSST), an 8.4-meter dish to from the United be built in Chile that could see States. “If scien- Dark sentinel. From its perch in low Earth fi rst light in 2018. But LSST tists from NASA orbit, China’s dark-matter-detection satellite will not be able to detect infra- come to China for a will use a stack of scintillators (inset) to look for red or near-ultraviolet waves conference, they can- gamma rays generated when dark-matter particles from cosmic sources, which not talk with Chinese annihilate each other. are absorbed in the upper scientists one-to-one,” atmosphere, and its resolu-

Wu says. “It reminds burst detector slated to fly tion, despite Chile’s superb conditions, will www.sciencemag.org me of our Cultural Revolu- on Tiangong 2 in 2014 as part be limited by atmospheric turbulence. tion,” he says, when science in of the Black Hole Probe Program. It China’s as-yet-unnamed mission also China was largely suppressed. The will be the only dedicated instrument in won’t look in the infrared, as it is not pos- NSSC and the U.S. National Academies space for measuring gamma ray polariza- sible to import astronomy-grade infrared are discussing ways to catalyze discussions tion, which should help scientists determine detectors. Chinese industrial-grade detec- between space scientists in the two countries. the structure of a gamma ray jet’s magnetic tors “don’t have the needed performance,” One tantalizing conversation starter may be fi eld, Zhang says. That, in turn, may shed says team member Zhan Hu, a cosmologist Downloaded from China’s long-term space astronomy plan, light on the origin of gamma ray bursts. One here at the National Astronomical Obser- which envisions putting telescope arrays on hypothesis is that they vatory of China. But China’s space station the moon after 2035. are unleashed when a survey, he says, will complement other Online massive star collapses efforts with its high angular resolution and A lasting legacy sciencemag.org at the end of its life; multiple bands covering optical and near- Shenzhou 9’s success opens a new realm for Podcast interview another is that they ultraviolet wavelengths. One challenge to Chinese scientists. The ability to perform with author are generated when mounting any telescope on a space station Richard Stone (http:// docking maneuvers in space will allow China scim.ag/pod_6089). neutron stars or black is that the station will rotate as it orbits. To to ferry equipment to Tiangong 1 and add up holes merge. “Each keep a fi xed gaze, the telescope must coun- to two more modules. Research on Tiangong model predicts a different structure of the terrotate. That job will be farmed out to involves closer coordination with the space magnetic fi eld,” Zhang says. optomechanical engineers. “They’ll do the program’s military masters. Two years ago, Scientists here may never have had heavy lifting,” Zhan says. CAS founded the Technology and Engineer- such a wealth of opportunities if China had If the survey mission passes muster, Zhan ing Center for Space Utilization here to man- been invited to join the 16-nation Interna- is confi dent that Chinese scientists will have age scientifi c payloads for Tiangong and the tional Space Station. “China didn’t have to new knowledge to contribute to science. planned space station. The army-run China make Tiangong if we could participate. But “With surveys, you always fi nd something Manned Space Engineering Offi ce has barred we were blocked out,” Qi says. Tiangong unexpected,” he says. “Current physics can- foreign correspondents from interviewing is a steppingstone to a 60-ton space station not explain dark energy. We have an opportu- center staff. However, scientists elsewhere in that China announced last December that it nity to discover some revolutionary physics.” CAS and at universities who are designing the would build by 2020. –RICHARD STONE

CREDITS: JIN CHANG experiments were able to speak with Science. Although a pipsqueak compared with the With reporting by Bu Kai and Zhang Dongdong.

www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 336 29 JUNE 2012 1637 Published by AAAS

Top View