Purified Urine Provides Clean Drinking Water for Astronauts
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CHINA DAILY | HONG KONG EDITION Friday, April 30, 2021 | 5 CHINA CHINA’S SPACE STATION China open Launch viewers Private firms to working expected to with other help build countries space station By ZHAO LEI By ZHAO LEI in Wenchang, Hainan Commercial enterprises will [email protected] have opportunities to take part in the construction and opera- China is open to cooperating tion of the nation’s space station, with other nations on its space according to a senior space offi- station project, an official said. cial. According to Hao Chun, director Hao Chun, head of the China of the China Manned Space Agen- Manned Space Agency, told Chi- cy, the agency has signed agree- na Daily in an interview earlier ments with the United Nations this month that his agency, Office for Outer Space Affairs on which administers the space sta- space station cooperation. The two tion program, will take advan- organizations have jointly issued a tage of private space companies’ statement inviting scientists from technologies and capabilities to around the world to submit their help State-owned contractors research proposals for an opportu- build and maintain the station. nity to conduct their own experi- “Actually, we have already ments aboard the Chinese station. started inviting private compa- “As of now, 17 nations have con- nies to offer their solutions to us. firmed their participation in nine For instance, we invited bids for scientific tasks on our station, People watch and film as a Long March 5B carrier rocket blasts off with Tianhe, the core capsule of China’s space station, in Wenchang, new concepts of cargo transpor- with related work proceeding Hainan province, on Thursday. LIU YANG AND ZHANG MAO / FOR CHINA DAILY tation to our space station and well,” Hao said. “We will continue then received proposals from working with the UN’s outer more than 10 private enterpris- space office to solicit proposals for es,” Hao said. “Next, we will future scientific collaborations.” review those proposals and The official said there will be select and support the good more than 20 cabinets aboard ones.” the station reserved for scientific Purified urine provides clean instruments that were designed in accordance with international standards, adding that they will The participation of be available for collaborators. Moreover, Hao said there defi- commercial space nitely will be foreign astronauts drinking water for astronauts enterprises will give on the Chinese station. “A lot of foreign space organi- us greater flexibility zations have told us that they Special apparatus cuts resupply costs, Once astronauts of the Shenzhou Wang said the apparatus is capa- and offer us more hoped we could open our station XII mission enter the core capsule ble of recovering more than 80 per- to their astronauts. Some foreign allows for longer durations, designer says in the near future, the apparatus cent of the water in urine and can convenience in astronauts have begun to learn will formally begin operation, Cui produce 2.5 liters of pure water each terms of the Chinese. We will start selecting By ZHAO LEI in Wenchang, Hainan “We sent signals from ground said. hour. foreign participants and prepar- [email protected] control to start the machine for a The machine’s processing method Cui said that the processed operation and ing for joint flights in due course certain period of time to check sounds simple — urine will be mixed water will not only be drinkable, maintenance of the according to the conditions on Researchers and engineers at the whether it can dispose of simulated with chemical agents for initial dis- but even cleaner than standard the station,” Hao said. China Aerospace Science and Indus- urine as we had designed. The read- posal and then pumped into a vacu- drinking water in China. It will space station.” “We are determined to make try Corp, a major defense contrac- ings were normal, which means our um container, where it will be boiled mainly be used for astronauts’ con- Hao Chun, head of the China our space station a shared plat- tor, have several sets of its design works,” said Cui Guangzhi, for evaporation. Then, water mole- sumption, cleansing and oxygen Manned Space Agency form for scientific and technolog- instruments inside the core capsule chief designer of the apparatus at cules will be collected from the production. ical research to benefit all people of the country’s space station that the institute. steam and be further purified. The 206th Institute began to If the selected companies around the world,” he added. was launched on Thursday. “Urine treatment and water However, engineers had to over- design the prototype of the appara- prove to be competent and quali- Hao also said his agency will Rather than lethal weapons, recovery are among the most impor- come a number of technical difficul- tus in August 2012 and finished the fied, the agency will consider strive to make sure that it makes those instruments will serve astro- tant parts in a space station’s envi- ties to make sure the process can design work in early 2013. Engi- commissioning them to fulfill the best use of the station to nauts who live and work inside the ronmental control and life support occur smoothly in the space station’s neers then manufactured several cargo transportation missions advance space science, technolo- station. One is especially indispen- system, being vital to astronauts. unique environment, which differs prototypes and started to conduct a for the station, according to him. gy and application. sable — the urine treatment and Long-term manned space missions from Earth’s in various ways, great number of ground tests to Currently, China has only one He said scientists will be able water recovery apparatus. rely heavily on regenerative life sup- according to Wang Tianbao, a mem- examine their capability and per- type of cargo spaceship — the to take advantage of the facility’s Developed and built by engi- port systems, and resupplying ber of Cui’s team. formance. Tianzhou, which was developed unique environment to perform neers at the CASIC Second Acade- water, oxygen and food poses chal- “For instance, in the station’s Previous Chinese manned mis- by State-owned space giant China mutation breeding experiments, my’s 206th Institute, the apparatus lenges. A reliable urine treatment microgravity environment, it is very sions kept astronauts’ urine in a spe- Aerospace Science and Technolo- produce special medicines and was activated for in-orbit testing and water recovery apparatus will hard to extract and concentrate cial container, which would burn gy Corp. Tianzhou 1 performed create new materials, thus gener- shortly after the capsule entered help extensively reduce resupply water molecules from the vapor, so along with the spacecraft’s resupply and refueling tests with ating scientific, technological orbit, and the results showed it costs and allow for longer-term mis- we developed a special device to sep- unmanned section as it fell back to the Tiangong II space laboratory and economic benefits. functions well. sions.” arate them,” he explained. Earth. in 2017, while Tianzhou 2 is scheduled to be launched in the coming months to dock with the core capsule of the space station. “The participation of commer- Labs play Program’s origin began cial space enterprises will give us greater flexibility and offer us key role at symposium in Hebei more convenience in terms of the operation and maintenance of By ZHAO LEI Deng endorsed the suggestion the space station, and it will also in mission and requested that related central help us reduce our overall costs,” The origin of China’s aspirations government departments imme- Hao said, also suggesting that to operate its own space station diately solicit advice and begin private companies should under- preparation can be traced back to July 1985, research and planning work. stand the space station pro- when the Ministry of Aerospace The scientists’ proposal became gram’s demands and look into Industry — predecessor of the Chi- reality in November 1986 as the available opportunities to make By ZHAO LEI na National Space Administration government launched what later the best use of their expertise. — arranged the first symposium became known as Project 863. The The official also said that the Though China launched the first on the space station in Qinhuang- national high-tech project covered rapidly expanding commercial module of its manned space station dao, Hebei province. seven major fields, ranging from space sector will become a major into orbit on Thursday, the nation Space officials, mission plan- biology to new energy. driving force for China’s space has conducted a large amount of ners, scientists and designers dis- The project set two major goals industry. preparatory work and accumulated cussed various topics including for China’s space sector in the In the wake of the intensifying experience through two previous The Tiangong I space lab docks with the Shenzhou IX manned possible responses to the Strategic coming decades: one was to build contest in the global space arena, space laboratory missions. spacecraft as it is monitored at a control center in Beijing in 2012. Defense Initiative — nicknamed large carrier rockets and reusable China has realized that it is nec- China’s first space lab — Tiangong I, ZHA CHUNMING / XINHUA the “Star Wars program”, which aerospace vehicles; the other was essary to introduce new players which was regarded by foreign space was being pushed by the adminis- to construct a space station. to stimulate innovation and com- observers as the nation’s first proto- tration of former US president Since then, scientists, designers petition and to fill in market gaps type space station, was launched in The country’s second woman in the lab substantially outlived its Ronald Reagan — and the road and engineers from domestic space left by established contractors.