China unveils plans for x-ray satellite to probe most violent corners of the universe
China is raising the stakes in its bid to become a major player in space science. At a kick-off meeting in Beijing last week, China's National Space Science Center, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), began detailed design studies for a satellite that would round out an array of orbiting platforms for probing x-rays from the most violent corners of the cosmos.
The enhanced X-Ray Timing and Polarimetry (eXTP) mission would be China's most ambitious space science satellite yet—and its most expensive, with an estimated price tag of $473 million. To pull it off, China is assembling a collaboration involving more than 200 scientists so far from dozens of institutions in 20 countries. If the eXTP mission passes a final review next year, it would launch around 2025.
Chinese scientists "are becoming leaders in the field of x-ray astrophysics," says Andrea Santangelo, an astrophysicist at the University of Tübingen in Germany and eXTP's international coordinator. Last year, the National Space Science Center launched the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope, which is observing high-energy objects such as black holes and neutron stars. As early as 2021 it will be joined by the Einstein Probe, a wide-field x-ray sentinel for transient phenomena such as gamma ray bursts and the titanic collisions of neutron stars or black holes that generate gravitational waves. "For years we have used data from U.S. and European missions," says eXTP Project Manager Lu Fangjun, an astrophysicist at the CAS Institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing. Now, he says, "We want to contribute [observational data] to the international community."
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by cocaine overdose on Saturday March 10 2018, @09:38PM
Goddamnit, Andrea. Get Chang's rice grain out of your mo- Andrea Santangelo is a man. Goddamnit, Germany. You're worse than the Polsikixklkeish. And what about the University of Toboggan? I bet the only reason Andrea (dead name?) became an astrologist was because his (/her) parents hated him (/her). And calling it the Einstein probe? For what good reason, Chino. For what good reason is an x-ray sentinel (dare I say, death ray) being named after Fraudstein? And PM Lu
FangJung Un, where does he fit into this? When he says "contribute [author's note: did you just assume he was going to contribute "observational data"?) to the international community," does he mean x-raying America's citizens and turning them into walking cancer abominations? Perhaps they've already done this and they're finally unveiling their master plans. The perfection of precision x-ray mutations on enemy soils. The Fangjun dynasty has figured out how to selectively use x-ray beams to cause non-metastasizing, but rapidly growing, tumors. That's what the obesity epidemic is all about. China's been x-raying all these poor sobs and now they're fat. Rather, all that fat is just one big tumor. Unit 731, move aside, the adults are in the room. Go eat at the children's table with Mengele.(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @05:10AM
TingTongOne crashing after 5 years, so with a Chia govt ordered 40% improvement for TingTongTwo we can except to have to upgrade our satellite-resistant bunkers by 2032.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:37AM (3 children)
China hasn't exactly been a front line player in astronomy (at least since the end of the sixth century) and really has nothing political to gain here.
Other than trying to distract from the power grab, and the impending heavenly palace crash, why begin such an audacious project with no track record in this field?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday March 11 2018, @10:38AM
X ray emitters in space are handy to have enemies suffer from strange illnesses.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:51PM
Why? Well, why not? 2025 is 7 years away. If they run into problems, nobody will remember what they promised. And it sounds good. It might be a question how serious they are, but China has been doing a lot of investing in high tech things for the last decade. Also, it's a good reason to work on better rockets that nobody would object to. I'm probably missing a few things, and I'd be just as cynical (with different details) about an announced US government plan for seven years in the future. Do you think the James Watt telescope will ever get off the ground? Or is it just going to funnel money to contractors?
That said, both of these are really difficult projects, so you can't really say from the outside that people aren't doing their best under bizarre constraints. (For the JWT one could certainly cite undependable year-to-year funding and management.)
FWIW, China has a better recent track record for long term projects than do many other countries. But they, also, have their share of failures.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday March 11 2018, @07:09PM
China wants to overtake the U.S. in all of the sciences, astronomy included. Maybe they will start siphoning off the world's scientists if the U.S. continues to demoralize them [soylentnews.org].
As for that space station deorbiting, that is no different than previous ones like Skylab. They are planning to build more space stations.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]