China News Agency, Beijing, February 26. Question: Three questions about the National Space Laboratory: Why was it built?
What are you studying?
What's the use?
China News Agency reporter Guo Chaokai
The Thirty Years Achievement Exhibition of China's manned spaceflight engineering was recently exhibited at the National Museum, showing the public the models of the space station assembly, sky and core modules.
After the China Space Station was fully completed at the end of last year, the project has entered the stage of application and development.
As the largest and long-term manned space experiment platform in the history of China's spaceflight, the completed Chinese space station will become a national space laboratory. The multiple experimental cabinets deployed in the third cabin can carry out thousands of scientific experiments in four major fields, benefiting ordinary people on earth. human life.
Why it was built: long-term stable microgravity and radiation environments
On February 24, "Chasing Dreams and the Universe and Asking the Sky—Exhibition of 30 Years of Achievements in China's Manned Spaceflight Engineering" opened at the National Museum of China in Beijing.
The picture shows a child taking pictures in front of the exhibits of various types of launch vehicles and rocket engine models in China.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Hou Yu
Why build a national space laboratory in low-earth orbit 400 kilometers away from the earth?
Zhang Wei, director of the Application Development Center of the Space Application Engineering and Technology Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said, "Compared with ordinary laboratories on the earth, the unique advantage of the National Space Laboratory is that it can provide a long-term, stable microgravity and radiation environment", This will help to carry out basic scientific experiments that explore the origin of the universe and reveal the nature and laws of motion of matter, as well as a series of experiments for space life science and material science.
"On the earth, life and matter are affected by gravity, and some essential laws will be covered up. The gravity of the space station is only one thousandth to one ten thousandth of the earth's surface. Under microgravity conditions, it is hoped that it will be covered by gravity. The laws of the nature of matter.” Zhang Wei said.
In addition, due to the absorption and interference of the atmosphere, gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet rays, infrared rays, and ultra-long waves in the universe cannot be effectively observed on the ground. Astronomical observations in related spectrum bands need to launch detectors into space for observation.
According to the plan, China will also launch a sky survey space telescope in the future.
This spacecraft with a diameter of 2 meters and a field of view 350 times larger than that of the Hubble Telescope will fly in co-orbit with the Chinese space station, which is expected to promote the leapfrog development of optical astronomy in China.
From the perspective of the development of the national science strategy, the commissioning of the National Space Laboratory is expected to bring China's space science and applications to a new level.
What to study: Thousands of scientific experiments carried out in four major fields
On February 24, "Chasing Dreams and the Universe and Asking the Sky—Exhibition of 30 Years of Achievements in China's Manned Spaceflight Engineering" opened at the National Museum of China in Beijing.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Hou Yu
According to the plan, the in-orbit operating life of the three-chamber combination of China's space station is no less than 10 years, and the service life can be extended through maintenance, providing a long-term and stable experimental platform for space science experiments.
Zhang Wei pointed out that the next 10 years will be an important period of opportunity for the development of China's space science, and it is expected to promote China's space science field to enter the international advanced ranks.
The China Space Station has deployed multiple scientific experiment cabinets, among which the Wentian Experimental Cabin is mainly for space life science research, and the Mengtian Experimental Cabin is mainly for microgravity scientific research.
In layman's terms, these scientific experiment cabinets are equivalent to moving laboratories into space, but their size can meet the research needs of many scientific research and application projects. Their complexity is no less than that of a satellite, and they are equipped with many advanced The experimental "artifact" will exert its "magic power" in space science experiments.
Zhang Wei said that in the future, the National Space Laboratory will be able to carry out thousands of scientific experiments in four major fields, covering a wide range of disciplines. It is a unique comprehensive platform to support scientific research in multiple fields, and it is also an important platform for international cooperation and popular science education.
The Chinese space station has also received extensive attention from the international scientific community, and a large number of foreign scientists have expressed their willingness to actively participate in the research of the Chinese space station.
At present, 9 scientific experiment projects from 17 countries including Switzerland, Poland, Germany, and Italy have been selected for the Chinese space station.
In the future, China's space station will also support more extensive and in-depth international cooperation such as joint development of payloads and cooperative scientific research, which will greatly strengthen China's international influence in the field of space science and technology.
In the near future, payload experts will also appear in the crew of astronauts going to the Chinese space station to perform missions, and it is expected to achieve more and better scientific research results.
According to the analysis, the spring of China's space science has arrived.
What's the use: the results of space scientific research benefit the people's livelihood
On February 24, "Chasing Dreams and the Universe and Asking the Sky—Exhibition of 30 Years of Achievements in China's Manned Spaceflight Engineering" opened at the National Museum of China in Beijing.
The picture shows the audience visiting the 1:10 model of the "Long March 10" carrier rocket (left), the lunar lander (middle) and the 1:4 model of the new-generation manned spacecraft.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Hou Yu
"Shipbuilding is for building stations, and station building is for applications." This is the original intention of China's manned spaceflight engineering construction and development.
In fact, the scientific research and application results of the National Space Laboratory are not far from the lives of ordinary people.
In December 2022, the third batch of space science experiment samples of the Chinese space station, which descended with the return capsule of the Shenzhou 14 spacecraft, was delivered to the space application system, including rice seeds, the main food crop for the Chinese.
Rice feeds nearly half of the world's population and is a major candidate food crop for future life support systems for manned deep space exploration.
Previously, the "seed-to-seed" cultivation of Arabidopsis, rapeseed, pea and wheat has been completed internationally in space, but the whole life cycle cultivation of rice is still blank.
This time, Chinese scientists completed the whole life cycle cultivation experiment of rice "from seed to seed" for the first time in the world.
Zhang Wei said that the research of the National Space Laboratory is closely related to the daily life of the people, and the whole life cycle cultivation of rice is a typical representative.
In addition, space biotechnology research such as stem cell culture and organoids can enhance the impact of ground and space on organ pathogenicity and help develop new treatment methods, providing new methods and means for the regeneration of artificial tissues and organs and tissues and organs.
Astronauts set up the stage, scientists sang operas, and ordinary people benefited.
In Zhang Wei's view, the scientific research achievements of China's space station can effectively promote the progress of ground technology, and the two complement each other.
In the future, China will promote the technological progress of industries such as biology, materials, information, and energy through the transfer, transformation, promotion and application of scientific and technological achievements of the National Space Laboratory, so as to help the country's economic and social development with high quality and benefit the people's livelihood to the greatest extent.
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