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Science Is Reaping the Benefits of China's Investment in Space

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Science Is Reaping the Benefits of China's Investment in Space This Long March-7 rocket carried a cargo craft to the Tiangong-2 space lab in April. RISING STAR Science is reaping the benefits of China’s investment in space. BY JANE QIU ime seems to move faster at the and meticulous,” says one. “No single failure in called Chang’e-3 landed on the Moon, deliv- National Space Science Center on 10,000 trials,” encourages another. ering a rover that used ground-penetrating the outskirts of Beijing. Research- For director-general Wu Ji, this 19.4-hectare, radar to measure the lunar subsurface with VCG/GETTY ers are rushing around this brand- 914-million-yuan (US$135-million) campus unprecedented resolution. China’s latest space Tnew compound of the Chinese Academy of represents the coming of age of China’s space- lab, which launched in September 2016, carries Sciences (CAS) in anticipation of the launch science efforts. In the past few decades, Wu says, more than a dozen scientific payloads. And of the nation’s first X-ray telescope. At mis- China has built the capacity to place satellites four additional missions dedicated to astro- sion control, a gigantic screen plays a looping and astronauts in orbit and send spacecraft to physics and other fields have been sent into video showcasing the country’s major space the Moon, but it has not done much significant orbit in the past two years, including a space- milestones. Engineers focus intently on their research from its increasingly lofty vantage craft that is conducting pioneering experi- computer screens while a state television point. Now, that is changing. “As far as space ments in quantum communication. crew orbits the room with cameras, collect- science is concerned,” he says, “we are the new These efforts, the work of the CAS and other ing footage for a documentary about China’s kid on the block.” agencies, have made an impact well beyond meteoric rise as a space power. The walls are China is rushing to establish itself as a leader the country’s borders. “The space-science pro- festooned with motivational slogans. “Diligent in the field. In 2013, a 1.2-tonne spacecraft gramme in China is extremely dynamic and 394 | NATURE | VOL 547 | 27 JULY ©20172017 Mac millan Publishers Li mited, part of Spri nger Nature. All ri ghts reserved. ©2017 Mac millan Publishers Li mited, part of Spri nger Nature. All ri ghts reserved. FEATURE NEWS innovative,” says Johann-Dietrich Wörner, missions, but that changed with the first lander, an earlier record of 144 kilometres (ref. 3). director-general of the European Space Agency Chang’e-3. The mission made China the third The team is also using the satellite to test (ESA) in Paris. “It’s at the forefront of scientific nation to accomplish a soft landing on the the possibility of establishing a quantum- discovery.” Eagerly anticipated missions in Moon. More importantly, Chang’e-3 touched communication channel between Graz, near the coming decade include attempts to bring down in an area that had never been studied up Vienna, and Beijing. The aim is to transmit back lunar samples, a joint CAS–ESA project close. Radar measurements and geochemical information securely by encrypting it with a key to study space weather and ground-breaking analyses unveiled a complex history of volcanic encoded in the states of photons. “If successful, missions to probe dark matter and black holes. eruptions that could have happened as recently a global quantum-communication network But despite the momentum, many research- as 2 billion years ago1. “It has really helped to will no longer be a science fiction,” says Pan ers in China worry about the nation’s future in bridge the gap in our understanding of the Jian-wei, a physicist at the CAS’s University of space science. On 2 July, a Long March-5 rocket Science and Technology of China in Hefei and failed during the launch of a communications the mission’s principal investigator. satellite, raising concerns about an upcoming Researchers are also expecting great Moon mission that will use a similar vehicle. things from the $300-million Dark Matter And broader issues cloud the horizon. “The “AS FAR AS SPACE Particle Explorer (DAMPE). The detector, international and domestic challenges are which launched in 2015, is the most cutting- formidable,” says Li Chunlai, deputy director SCIENCE IS edge equipment for picking up high-energy at the CAS’s National Astronomical Observa- cosmic rays, says Martin Pohl, an astrophysi- tories in Beijing and a senior science adviser CONCERNED, WE cist at University of Geneva in Switzerland and on the country’s lunar programme. China is a co-principal investigator of the mission. often sidelined in international collaboration, DAMPE’s data could help to determine and in recent years it has had to compete with ARE THE NEW KID whether a surprising pattern in the abundance the United States for partners because of a US of high-energy electrons and positrons — law that prohibits NASA from working with ON THE BLOCK.” detected by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer China. Within China, the government has not (AMS) aboard the International Space Station conducted strategic planning for space science — comes from dark matter or from astronomi- or provided long-term financial support. “The Moon’s past and deep structure,” says study cal sources such as pulsars, says Pohl, who question is not how well China has been doing,” leader Xiao Long, a planetary geologist at the also works on the AMS. Because DAMPE is says Li. “But how long this will last.” China University of Geosciences in Wuhan. more sensitive than the AMS to high-energy The results have captured the attention of particles, Pohl says, it “will make a significant REACHING FOR THE MOON planetary scientists in other countries. “There is contribution”. China’s entry into the space age started with a an urgent need to determine the precise age and song. In 1970, the country’s first satellite trans- composition of the Moon’s youngest volcan- SCIENCE FOR ALL mitted the patriotic tune ‘The East is Red’ from ism,” says James Head, a specialist in planetary The dark-matter and quantum missions low Earth orbit. But it was only after the cultural exploration at Brown University in Providence, launched just before the CAS’s space-science revolution ended in 1976 that the nation made Rhode Island. This might soon be possible. As funding expired. Scientists, including Wu, serious progress towards establishing a strong early as December, the Chang’e-5 spacecraft will had to battle for continued support. The presence in space. The first major milestone launch on a mission to return samples from near Chinese government has lately prioritized came in 1999 with the launch of Shenzhou-1, Mons Rümker, a region known to host volcanic applied research, and it took intense lobbying an uncrewed test capsule that marked the start rocks much younger than those obtained from for the better part of 2016 before research- of the human space-flight programme. Since the Apollo landing sites. “It would be a fantastic ers convinced the government to allocate an then, the country has notched up a series of addition to lunar science,” Head says. additional $730 million to the CAS for space successes, including sending Chinese astro- science over the next five years. “It was not nauts into orbit and launching two space labs FIVE YEARS without a fight,” Wu says. “But we’ve managed (see ‘Earth orbit and beyond’). The rising fortunes of Chinese space science to pull it off.” “China’s space programme has made have come in part from efforts by the CAS, The new plan, which began this year, funds tremendous advances in a short period of which worked through the 2000s to convince a number of missions slated for launch in the time,” says Michael Moloney, who directs China’s government to boost the scientific 2020s, including China’s first solar explora- boards covering aerospace and space science impact of its missions. The academy’s efforts tion mission and a remote-sensing spacecraft at the US National Academies of Sciences, were eventually rewarded with a pot of money: to study Earth’s water cycle. Engineering, and Medicine in Washington the five-year Strategic Priority Program on The CNSA and the China Manned Space DC. And science has progressively become a Space Science kicked off in 2011 and provided Agency have also been ramping up their space- bigger part of missions run by both the China $510 million for the development of four science efforts. One source of excitement is a National Space Administration (CNSA), science satellites. $440-million X-ray telescope led by the CNSA, which governs lunar and planetary explora- One of the missions that has yielded early called Enhanced X-ray Timing and Polarim- tion, and the China Manned Space Agency. results — and garnered worldwide attention — etry (eXTP). Planned for launch by 2025, the The country’s newest space lab, Tiangong-2, is the $100-million Quantum Experiments at mission is being financed in part by European for example, hosts a number of scientific Space Scale (QUESS) mission. The spacecraft partners and involves hundreds of scientists payloads, including an advanced atomic clock launched in August 2016 and has been testing from 20 countries. It is designed to study and a $3.4-million detector called POLAR a peculiar phenomenon called entanglement, matter under extreme conditions of density, for the study of γ-ray bursts — blasts of high- in which the quantum states of particles are gravity and magnetism that can be found only energy radiation from collapsing stars and linked to each other even if the particles are far in space — in the interior of neutron stars or other sources.
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