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Chinese Scientists, Engineers List Top 10 Scientific, Tech Stories of 2020

Jan 22, 2021

 

An illustration shows the orbital transfer injection by Chang'e 5's orbiter-reentry capsule combination. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] 

The Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering on Tuesday jointly revealed the top 10 news stories of scientific and technological progress in China and in the world in 2020.

The top 10 news stories were voted by academicians of the two academies. The annual activity is in its 27th year.

China's top 10 scientific and technological progress news reports in 2020:

1. The Chang'e 5 lunar probe successfully returned to Earth carrying moon samples. Scientific research on moon samples was launched.

China launched the Chang'e 5 probe on Nov 24 as part of its moon missions. The probe successfully landed in a pre-selected zone on the moon on Dec 1. After sampling lunar soil, Chang'e 5's reentry capsule set off for Earth and landed in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region on Dec 17, marking the accomplishment of China's first return with samples from an extraterrestrial celestial body.

The samples, weighing 1,731 grams, were later transferred to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, where they will be stored, processed and analyzed in the lunar laboratory at the National Astronomical Observatory, a CAS subsidiary.

Chang'e 5's mission is the most complex and technologically-advanced space project in China. It is of great significance to the country in upgrading space technology, improving the lunar exploration system and carrying out lunar scientific research, as well as organizing lunar and interplanetary exploration missions that will follow.

2. China launched the last satellite of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, marking the completion of the deployment of its own global navigation system.

China successfully launched the 55th satellite of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, the last of the BDS-3 system, by using a Long March 3B rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Southwest China's Sichuan province.

The satellites and the supporting launch vehicles were developed by the China Academy of Space Technology and China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, both subsidiaries of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. A number of research institutes, including the CAS's Innovation Academy for Microsatellites, also participated in their development.

This also was the 336th flight of the Long March series of launch vehicles. With the strong support of measurement and control, ground operations and control, and inter-satellite management and application verification systems, all the previously launched satellites in orbit have been put into a constellation, with the deployment fully completed six months earlier than planned.

 

The manned submersible Fendouzhe completes the second stage of sea trials in November. XINHUA 

3. China's unmanned submersible and manned submersible both make new breakthroughs in deep diving.

Unmanned submersible Haidou-1, developed by the Shenyang Institute of Automation of CAS, returned from sea trials aboard the scientific research vessel Exploration 1 on June 8. During this voyage, Haidou-1 set a new record by submerging 10,907 meters under the Pacific Ocean's surface at the Mariana Trench, the deepest area in the world.

On Nov 28, the deep-sea manned submersible Fendouzhe, meaning "striver" in Chinese, returned with the research vessel Exploration 1. The submersible was jointly developed by the No 702 research institute of the China State Shipbuilding Corporation and CAS's Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering.

During this expedition, Fendouzhe set a national diving record of 10,909 meters in the Mariana Trench, marking the fact China has achieved a leading position in the world in the field of manned deep diving. It also will help scientists understand the composition and evolution of organisms in the abyssal seabed, mineral deposits and seamount volcanic rocks, as well as the role of deep-sea trenches in monitoring the climate.

4. China was the first country in the world to extract flammable ice using a horizontal well-drilling technique.

Natural gas hydrate is commonly known as flammable ice. On March 26, the Ministry of Natural Resources announced that China had extracted a record amount of flammable ice during the second trial exploration in the South China Sea, with about 28,700 cubic meters collected per day and a total of 861,400 cubic meters extracted.

During the trial, researchers also independently developed a set of key technologies and an equipment system to industrialize gas hydrate extraction, created a unique environmental protection and monitoring system, and independently innovated an environmental risk prevention and control system.

The trial has overcome the core technology of drilling horizontal wells in shallow and soft strata in the deep sea, making China the first country in the world to adopt the horizontal well-drilling technique to trial mining gas hydrates in the sea.

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