Welcome to Taikonautica, your weekly dose of the Chinese space industry. If you haven’t subscribed yet, sign up here.
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Some housekeeping: I have realized lately that I do not have the bandwidth (at least for now) in my personal and professional life to continue to do a translation of any significant length once a week.
Still, I think that events in this space happen frequently enough that I want to maintain the weekly format.
So, I’ve decided to move to doing translations every other week, with the week in between dedicated to keeping up with the news in the sector. Let me know what you think!
News Roundup
July 30: The German government barred the German laser communications equipment manufacturer Mynaric from selling technology to a Chinese company, “due to sect. 6 para. 1 in combination with sect. 4 para. 1 foreign trade law.”
Mynaric did not seem bothered by the decision, saying that it wanted to remain on the good side of its core markets and was hoping to score a deal with the US military.
Source: Mynaric
August 6: China launched the 4th in the Gaofen 9 series of earth observation satellites from Jiuquan on a Long March 2D rocket. Gaofen 9 satellites are manufactured by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) and are a component of the China High-resolution Earth Observation System (CHEOS). They have a 1 meter resolution. Also onboard was a satellite belonging to Tsinghua University, which will “measure atmospheric density and collect gravity field data.”
The Tsinghua satellite:
Source: Tsinghua University
Notably, this was the 50th launch of the Long March 2D:
Source: CASC
Upcoming
August 19: On Wednesday at 11 AM EST, the Jamestown Foundation, a DC think tank, is hosting a free webinar titled “China’s Space Ambitions: Emerging Dimensions of Competition.” Speaking will be “Dean Cheng of the Heritage Foundation and John Dotson, editor of China Brief.”
Until next time
My name is Cory Fitz and I write the Taikonautica newsletter. To make you smarter about China’s rapidly evolving space industry, Taikonautica brings you translations of Chinese-language articles, as well as a roundup of links and news.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me on Twitter at @cory_fitz