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China is preparing a major project that will not only expand the national plan for astronomical research but also support the use of the country’s space station complex.
China is preparing a major project that will not only expand the national plan for astronomical research but also support the use of the country’s space station complex. And there are bragging rights for China’s stellar startup. The spacecraft is called Xuntian and is known as the China Research Space Telescope or China Space Station Telescope (CSST). The name “Xuntian” literally means “view of the sky” or “appearance of the sky”.
The bus-sized CSST, scheduled for launch next year, includes a two-meter (6.6 ft) diameter main mirror. This ultraviolet optical space telescope will operate in orbit together with the country’s Tiangong Space Station. Its nominal lifespan is 10 years, but the observatory’s space missions can be extended.
Xuntian was designed to outperform NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. This large orbital object is expected to enter orbit near the Chinese space station, where it can be overhauled by Chinese spacemen from time to time.
Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of the China Manned Space Agency, said that the Xuntian Orbital Observatory is expected to make breakthroughs in cosmology, dark matter and dark energy, the Milky Way galaxy and other nearby galaxies, the formation and evolution of stars and exoplanets. .
This is a difficult task.
Lin said the high-resolution telescope will provide deep survey observations over an area of 17,500 square meters, as well as precise observations of various types of celestial objects. Xuntian has a 2.5 billion pixel camera.
Xuntian is expected to be launched into Earth orbit next year on a Long March 5B rocket. It can capture high-resolution panoramic images of the universe with roughly the same spatial resolution as the Hubble Space Telescope. But China’s orbital eye has a field of view 300 times larger than Hubble’s. Field of view is the area of sky that a telescope can see at once.
Last year, in an interview with China’s state news agency Xinhua, Li Ran, a researcher on the CSST Scientific Data Reduction System project, used the analogy of the image of a flock of sheep to draw attention to CSST’s capabilities.
“Hubble can see one sheep, but CSST sees thousands at the same resolution,” Lee said.
Additionally, this superscope will remain in the same orbit as the space station for long-term independent flights and observations. Lin said the vehicle was designed to temporarily dock with the space station for practical resupply, maintenance and upgrades by Tiangong astronauts.
In an interview with China Central Television (CCTV), Zhou Jianping, the chief developer of China’s manned space program, also announced Xuntian’s planned capabilities and contributions.
“The Xuntian telescope has been the most important scientific project since the launch of the space station program in our country. It is a scientific object that the Chinese astronomy community has been eagerly awaiting, and a scientific object that represents state-level high technology in astronomy,” Zhou said. aforementioned
Zhou added that the telescope is also the most advanced in terms of its ability to produce images in the ultraviolet spectrum among current research telescope projects in the world. “It is expected to greatly accelerate the development of astronomy, elevate our country’s astronomy research to an internationally leading level, and help Chinese astronomers become a leading force in this field.”
According to Li Chenyuan of the School of Physics and Astronomy at Sun Yat-sen University of China, the China Space Station and NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope are sensitive to a similar wavelength range. But Li noted last year in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics Research that Xuntian covers a field of view about 5 to 8 times wider than Hubble’s.
The Xuntian First Generation Space Telescope consists of five observing instruments, including the Xuntian Module, Terahertz Module, Multi-Channel Imager, Integral Field Spectrograph, and Extrasolar Planetary Imaging Coronagraph. It will take a long time to observe the Xuntian module, which is a camera with a wide field of view.
During normal observations, the space telescope will fly independently in the same orbit as the Chinese space station but at a greater distance.
“We are still developing a prototype sample. We have currently completed the development of all subsystems, components and units, and are preparing for testing after assembly,” said Xu Shuyang, Chief Designer of Xuntian Optical Factory. and researcher at the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
“After that, we will start developing the prototype telescope and researching flying parts. Then we will conduct a joint test with the Xuntian platform and conduct a test at the launch base before launch,” said Xu. watching videos.
In the big world of expanding the boundaries of space astronomy, look no further than the achievements of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland. STScI is a multi-purpose science operations center for NASA’s flagship observatories and a world-class astronomical research facility.
STScI will host impressive science programs using the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope, and will be the science operations center for the Rome Nancy Grace Space Telescope, which will launch in the mid-2020s.
The institute is located on the campus of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and is operated by the Association of Universities for NASA Astronomy Research.
While leaders of China’s space agency are already touting Xuntian’s capabilities, some researchers are skeptical.
“For institutions open to the international scientific community, such as Hubble or Webb, we provide a significant amount of documentation and software so researchers can plan extraordinary science programs,” said Tom Brown, astronomer and director of the Hubble Mission Office at STScI.
“By contrast, not much is publicly known about the specific capabilities of the China Space Station telescope, so it is difficult to judge how it might enable similar research,” Brown told Space.com.
Based on the little information available, the Chinese space station telescope will have a wider field of view than Hubble, but a smaller mirror with a smaller collecting area and spatial resolution, Brown said.
Source: Port Altele
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