An injured spotted seal pup that went astray far from its habitat has been returned to its native of Liaoning Province after more than a year of professional rescue and care, with its health steadily improving.
Under China’s highest level of national protection, the phoca largha, also known as spotted seal, is the only pinniped marine mammal that breeds in Chinese waters.
Last year, the spotted seal pup wandered into the waters off Weizhou Island in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, a long way from its habitat in northeast China. After being rescued, it drew widespread attention among netizens, and was affectionately given the Chinese name “Nana” .
On Nov 25, "Nana" was transferred from Guangxi to the Liaoning Provincial Marine and Fisheries Research Institute for follow-up care, and will be released into the Bohai Bay when conditions permit.
Tian Jiashen, director of the marine rare animal conservation research office of the institute, who takes care of the spotted seals, said that it took some time before "Nana" got adapted to the new environment, but now things are getting better. "When 'Nana' arrived, it didn't eat normally in the first week as it wasn't quite used to the living environment here at our rescue center. Later, the animal gradually adapted to the new surroundings and its food intake began to increase," Tian said.
"Nana" is currently a little over one year old, and its body weight is significantly lower than that of wild individuals of the same age. However, its body length is developing normally, at around 1.3 meters. Tian said after more than half a month of isolation and care at the rescue center, the animal’s health continued to improve.
"It's growing relatively slowly, with the body weight gradually increasing from 51 kg when it first arrived to around 53 kg. Its health condition and activity level are now much better than before it arrived," he said.
Straying spotted seal pup returns home in good health
The maiden flight of China's independently developed Zhuque-3 reusable rocket, also the country's first attempt to recover an orbital stage of a carrier rocket, has made important breakthrough despite final-stage failure, said Dai Zheng, commander in chief of the Zhuque-3 mission.
The Zhuque-3 is a large-capacity, low-cost, reusable liquid launch vehicle independently developed by China to deploy large-scale constellations.
The Zhuque-3 rocket blasted off from the Dongfeng commercial space innovation pilot zone, near the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.
After ignition and liftoff, the first and second stages of the rocket separated in about 130 seconds. The second stage continued to complete the orbital insertion mission, while the first stage began its return journey.
The reuse section appeared in people's sight on time. Nevertheless, its first-stage booster suffered anomalous combustion during recovery, failing to achieve a soft touchdown on the landing pad.
The specific causes are under investigation, according to Dai, also the CEO of LandSpace, the rocket's designer, who gave an exclusive interview to the China Central Television (CCTV) in Beijing.
"This launch was actually China's first attempt to recover the first stage of an orbital-deployed launch vehicle. From the very beginning, we didn't expect the maiden flight to be a guaranteed success, it was more of an experimental and exploratory endeavor, and the result is slightly regrettable," said Dai.
Getting a rocket from supersonic speed to a perfectly intact landing on the ground is an extremely difficult task for rocket control, and the retrieved footage from the rocket showed that Zhuque-3 is not far from success, according to Dai.
"After separation, it underwent a high-altitude, high-angle attitude adjustment. After the attitude adjustment, it ignited at an altitude of 80 kilometers. This high-altitude ignition phase is actually very successful. When it entered the lower 40-kilometer range, the engine was shut down. Then it entered the aerodynamic gliding phase, during which the rocket descended at a supersonic speed, which was very fast at this point, and we had to rely on the grid fins on the rocket and the onboard control system to control the rocket," he said.
"From 40 kilometers to the final three kilometers above the ground, the supersonic descent phase, the aerodynamic control during the phase were flawless. At three kilometers above the ground, a landing ignition was required, somewhat like an emergency brake. As the altitude dropped to zero, the speed essentially decreased to zero. Only then could the landing legs extend to absorb the final impact, allowing the rocket to land intact. This is an extremely challenging maneuver for rocket control. Our final attempt to brake failed, so it didn't function as a brake, and ultimately it crashed at the edge of the landing zone, approximately 40 meters from the designated touchdown center," said Dai.
Although the mission was not entirely successful, for Dai and his team, the successful entry into orbit is also very meaningful.
"The primary objective of this mission was to verify the rocket's ability to reach the designated orbit. It shows that our rocket is able to subsequently provide services to satellite customers. Recovery is a very important means for a rocket company to reduce costs, but for our customers, their requirement is you deliver their cargo, their payload, their satellite, to the intended operational orbit. Whether the rocket can be reused is not their concern. In fact, we didn't launch the rocket with a real payload this time, but with a dummy payload instead. For the rocket industry, especially for a private commercial rocket company like ours, a successful flight is essential to demonstrate the rocket's capability before we can sell it. This is actually an industry practice," said Dai.
China's self-developed reusable rocket achieves key breakthrough in maiden flight: mission leader
