China delays till ’25 the launch of its Hubble-class optical space telescope
China today revealed that it is delaying the the launch of its Xuntian space telescope from early next year to 2025.
Zhan Hu, project scientist of Xuntian space telescope system, revealed that the delay was necessary for the team to finalize a preflight “engineering qualification model.” This model will undergo rigorous performance tests early next year. Despite the setback, China is making significant strides by domestically developing all five instruments for Xuntian, a first for the country, Scientific American reported.
The optical telescope, designed to somewhat comparable to Hubble, is intended to fly close to China’s Tiangong-3 space station where astronauts will periodically fly over to do maintenance and repair. Its primary mirror, two meters in diameter, is only slightly smaller than Hubble’s 2.4 meter mirror.
The article says the launch was supposed to happen before the end of this year, but that is incorrect. The launch has been targeting the spring of 2024 since February.
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China today revealed that it is delaying the the launch of its Xuntian space telescope from early next year to 2025.
Zhan Hu, project scientist of Xuntian space telescope system, revealed that the delay was necessary for the team to finalize a preflight “engineering qualification model.” This model will undergo rigorous performance tests early next year. Despite the setback, China is making significant strides by domestically developing all five instruments for Xuntian, a first for the country, Scientific American reported.
The optical telescope, designed to somewhat comparable to Hubble, is intended to fly close to China’s Tiangong-3 space station where astronauts will periodically fly over to do maintenance and repair. Its primary mirror, two meters in diameter, is only slightly smaller than Hubble’s 2.4 meter mirror.
The article says the launch was supposed to happen before the end of this year, but that is incorrect. The launch has been targeting the spring of 2024 since February.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
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A (assumedly) circular mirror of d=1m has 30% less area than a mirror of d=1.2m. I would suggest more than “. . . slightly smaller . . “.
Radius. Sorry.
I hope they do a better job of testing the mirror before launch than the dopes in the US did!
David.
One was a KH-11 spysat turned outward
Another a space scope’ likely turned inward.
The only stars that one will likely see are on AF brass enjoying a lunch in the Pentagon’s center.
Sad how every space Power but us has a MOL.