Two China Coast Guard (CCG) vessels set sail from Shanghai on Wednesday to carry out a 31-day fishery law enforcement patrol mission on the high seas of the North Pacific Ocean.
In a statement, the CCG said that the patrol is an important effort from China to fulfill its international obligations.
The CCG dispatches two vessels to undertake this mission annually, and this year marks its 10th mission.
"Maintaining order in high seas fisheries and safeguarding marine ecosystems are responsibilities that the China Coast Guard undertakes without hesitation. Through successive patrols, we have evolved from merely 'participating in law enforcement' to 'taking proactive actions', becoming a key participant and contributor to global high seas governance. During this mission, we will conduct law enforcement patrols to crack down on illegal fishing activities, demonstrating to the world China's image as a responsible major country," said Zhang Zhiyuan, a CCG official.
In recent years, the CCG has actively implemented United Nations General Assembly Resolution 46/215 and the Convention on the Conservation and Management of High Seas Fisheries Resources in the North Pacific Ocean, according to the statement.
It has conducted boarding and inspection operations on the high seas to crack down on illegal, unreported or unregulated fishing activities, helping promote the sustainable development of fishery resources, the statement indicated.
China Coast Guard vessels depart for fishery patrol in North Pacific
Researchers from China and Europe have achieved a landmark collaboration in space science as the Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) was successfully launched Tuesday aboard a Vega-C rocket from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana.
The satellite, a joint mission between the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the European Space Agency (ESA), is aimed at studying space weather and its effects on Earth. It will use soft X-ray imaging technology to provide a global view of the large-scale structure of Earth's magnetosphere for the first time.
Following its launch, the satellite was confirmed to have entered its planned orbit, with its solar arrays successfully deployed and systems operating normally.
"The SMILE satellite is the first to conduct panoramic imaging of Earth's magnetosphere. The satellite is in a highly elliptical orbit, with one orbit taking approximately 50 hours, during which more than 40 hours are spent photographing and observing at apogee," Said Dai Lei, chief designer of SMILE's science application system at the National Space Science Center of CAS.
"The primary scientific objective is to perform global imaging of the large-scale structures in Earth's space environment using soft X-ray and ultraviolet bands, revealing the processes and evolutionary patterns of solar wind-magnetosphere interaction," said Li Huawang, chief designer of SMILE at the Innovation Academy for Microsatellites of CAS (IAMCAS).
SMILE was first proposed in 2015, marking the first mission-level deep collaboration between CAS and ESA.
Scientists have installed four scientific payloads on the SMILE satellite. ESA is in charge of the payload module, while the platform module is under the responsibility of CAS.
To reach higher orbit, the engineers had to reduce the weight of the structure part. They updated their designs and structures to make the best use of the material and function of the satellite.
"From system concepts to engineering reality, I evolved with this project," said Liu Bang, deputy attitude control designer of SMILE at IAMCAS.
The mission is expected to deliver a series of scientific breakthroughs in areas including space weather forecasting and the fundamental understanding of magnetospheric physics.
SMILE satellite represents milestone in China-Europe space cooperation
