A variety of colorful cultural events, from New Year fairs to intangible cultural heritage exhibitions, are unfolding in Beijing to usher in the Spring Festival, which falls on Jan 29 this year.
Around the Shichahai Lake, a popular scenic spot in Beijing, rows of booths at the Spring Festival fair offer everything from exquisite cultural and creative products to traditional folk art displays, drawing many residents and tourists to stop and enjoy the festive atmosphere.
"This is my first time in China to see the Spring Festival. I can see a lot of people moving around and so many colorful things. I also know this year is the Year of the Snake, so I know it's going to be a wonderful year," said a foreign tourist.
The nighttime view at the Shichahai fair is no less stunning, featuring a dazzling hundred-meter-long light canopy above the market promenade and a dreamlike light show on the small island in the lake.
In addition to the outdoor fair, a large indoor exhibition themed with the Spring Festival is underway in Beijing. The exhibition displays hundreds of intangible cultural heritage projects and items related to this significant event, giving visitors a chance to learn more about festival folk traditions from across China.
The entire exhibition hall has been transformed into a space of a traditional temple fair highlighting intangible cultural heritage. Visitors can engage in activities like guessing riddles on lanterns, writing Spring couplets, and watching performances by inheritors of traditional arts.
A notable feature is the cloth-paste painting, recognized as a type of national intangible cultural heritage of the Manchu ethnic group from north China's Hebei Province. The handcrafted cloth-paste painting bags have won the hearts of many visitors at the exhibition, making the "good-luck bags" a popular choice for New Year gifts.
On the outskirts of Beijing, a captivating lantern art festival is underway, featuring over 10,000 lanterns made in Zigong, a city in southwest China's Sichuan Province with a rich history of lantern making. The festival also offers various cultural tourism products and experiences, adding to the festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival season.
Cultural events unfold in Beijing to celebrate upcoming Spring Festival
Major breakthroughs by Chinese scientists have laid the foundation for a future where space-based solar power stations are capable of wirelessly transmitting energy to Earth and spacecraft, though significant engineering problems remain.
A research team from Xidian University in northwest China's Shaanxi Province has made significant progress on the Sun Chasing project, or "Zhuri" in Chinese. The team has developed a ground-based test system for wireless power transmission that can charge multiple moving targets at the same time.
In recent tests, the system achieved a wireless power transmission efficiency of 20.8 percent from direct current to direct current over a distance of 100 meters. It delivered 1,180 watts of power. The team has also built a wireless charging system for drones. In a test, a drone flying at 30 kilometers per hour was able to receive 143 watts of stable power from 30 meters away.
A space solar power station works exactly as its name suggests: a huge array of solar panels placed in orbit. It would collect sunlight in space, where the sun always shines, and then convert that energy into microwaves or lasers to beam down to Earth or directly to satellites and spacecraft. This could address two significant issues: supplying uninterrupted power for space missions and alleviating energy shortages on the ground.
"The construction of space solar power stations could become a major undertaking in the future. One potential benefit is access to a virtually unlimited power supply. Because energy can be collected continuously in space 24 hours a day, electricity could be supplied on an uninterrupted basis," said Fan Guanheng, an associate professor at the School of Mechano-Electronic Engineering at Xidian University.
"Secondly, it could reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, thereby lowering carbon emissions and helping protect the environment. Thirdly, it could support the development of charging infrastructure in space and enable wireless microwave charging for spacecraft, changing the way power is supplied to space vehicles," the professor added.
In 2018, the research team launched the first phase of the Sun Chasing project to build a ground test system. By June 2022, they had completed the world's first full-link, full-system ground validation system for a space solar power station. Now, the team has moved to phase two. The goal now is to solve the challenges of generating high power in space and transmitting it efficiently over long distances.
According to Duan Baoyan, an expert at Xidian University and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, recent breakthroughs include improving the efficiency of solar energy collection and conversion, increasing the precision of microwave beam control to reduce energy loss, and making the transmitting and receiving antennas smaller and lighter, which is critical for space application.
The team has also solved the problem of how to power multiple moving targets at once using a single transmitter. This means that in the future, one space power station could potentially supply electricity to several satellites or ground vehicles at the same time, Duan said.
Despite the advances in ground-based validation, a series of technical challenges must still be overcome before the technology can be deployed in space.
"The first issue that needs to be addressed is the adaptability of components to the space environment, as conditions in space are completely different from those on Earth, including radiation exposure and extreme temperatures. Another challenge involves the deployment and retraction design of transmitting and receiving antennas. We also need to develop thermal management systems to cope with extreme temperatures and temperature fluctuations in space. These are all areas where further breakthroughs are needed," said Qian Sihao, an associate professor at the School of Mechano-Electronic Engineering at Xidian University.
"We have now completed the development and validation of a ground-based test system, and our next step is to carry out in-orbit wireless microwave power transmission," Fan said.
With ground validation complete, the team now turns its attention to overcoming the harsh realities of space, aiming to demonstrate in-orbit wireless power transmission and bring the vision of orbital solar energy closer to reality.
Space-to-earth solar power moves closer to reality although hurdles remain: scientists
