China has continuously upgraded its multi-satellite separation system of the Lijian-1 carrier rocket, said Shi Xiaoning, chief designer of the Lijian-1 Y5 rocket from CAS Space, a Beijing-based rocket maker.
The country on Monday launched the Lijian-1 Y5 commercial carrier rocket with 15 satellites onboard.
The rocket blasted off at 12:03 (Beijing Time) from a commercial aerospace innovation pilot zone in northwest China, and sent the 15 satellites, including the Jilin-1 Gaofen series, Yunyao-1 series, Xiguang-1 series, and a remote-sensing satellite launched for Oman, into their planned orbits. The launch marked the fifth flight mission of the Lijian-1 carrier rocket series.
Multi-satellite launch, which sends a number of satellites into orbit in a single launch, is a highly demanding technology that has been mastered only by a few countries.
With the continuous development of satellite technology in China, especially in the field of civilian satellites, the trend of batch launching of small satellites and forming constellations in space is gradually becoming mainstream. This type of multi-satellite launch places high demands on the separation of the satellites and the rocket.
"For this multi-satellite launch mission, we have added a satellite-rocket separation control unit and a satellite-rocket separation resistor box, which can provide more separation timing sequence and separation collection capabilities, enabling better adaptation of our control system to such multiple satellite launch missions," he said.
The chief designer also introduced that the upgraded technology used together with a large-diameter fairing can carry out the mission of launching over 50 satellites at once in the future, contributing to the subsequent construction of China's large-scale low-orbit satellite internet.
"Due to the increasing demand for stacked launch, including multi-satellite missions, it can adapt to more launch missions in the future, such as launching 18 or 36 satellites on a carrier rocket," he said.
China continues to upgrade multi-satellite separation system of carrier rocket
China has issued a document of guidelines on promoting the construction of new-type urban infrastructure.
The guidelines, made public on Thursday, was jointly approved by the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council, and highlights two major goals.
By 2027, significant progress should have been made in the construction of new-type urban infrastructure, providing ever increasing support for the development of resilient cities, while a number of experience and practices that can be copied and expanded should have been established.
By 2030, the construction of new-type urban infrastructure should have achieved remarkable results, to help push forward the building of a group of high-level resilient cities, improve urban safety and resilience, and ensure safer, more orderly, smarter and more efficient urban operations.
To achieve these aims, major tasks must be fulfilled in 11 aspects, including implementing the building and upgrading of intelligent municipal infrastructure, promoting the coordinated development of smart city infrastructure and intelligent connected vehicles, and developing smart residential quarters, according to the guidelines.
In addition, there are other important tasks such as raising the intelligence level of housing and building management, carrying out digital home construction, improving city information modeling platforms, and maintaining cyber and data security.
"Currently, various types of urban disasters and safety accidents are prone to occur frequently. Proposing comprehensive advancement in building resilient cities is an important measure to address the current urban disaster risks. Meanwhile, it is also an important aspect of advancing the modernization of urban governance in our country, with significant implications for implementing the holistic approach to national security and promoting the secure development of cities," said Wang Kai, president of the Chinese Academy of Urban Planning and Design.
Experts said that cities, which serve as the main engine of China's economic and social development and play a primary role in expanding domestic demand, provide the broadest application scenarios and innovation space for new-generation information technologies such as 5G, the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and the Industrial Internet.
"The construction of new-type urban infrastructure essentially aims to construct a new-type urban infrastructure system based on digitization, networking, and intelligence. We should firmly grasp the development trends of digitization, networking, and intelligence to enhance the level of intelligence of the entire urban infrastructure, improve our monitoring capabilities, and enhance our risk prevention and control capabilities," said Liang Feng, vice chairman of the Smart City Professional Committee of the Science and Technology Committee under the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.
China to step up construction of new-type urban infrastructure
