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!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the 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. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
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4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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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.