Movie fans have voiced high expectation for the 28th Shanghai International Film Festival, which will run from June 12 to 21 and stage over 400 selected movies.
This year's film festival will span 47 cinemas across Shanghai and five cities in the Yangtze River Delta, staging over 420 films in more than 1,500 screenings.
A total of 250,000 tickets were sold online just 15 minutes after sales began, with three hottest sections covering 4K restoration, global award-winning films, and Asian masterpieces.
"I've been watching for 20 years. To truly enjoy a film, you should watch it at a film festival," said movie fan Xia Zuxiang.
"I planned to buy around 20 sessions and I've managed to get them all," said Wang Chenwei, another festival attendee.
In addition to popular screening sections, this year's event has also specially arranged a domestic film section, which features 15 classic and emerging Chinese films that showcase China's geographical features and cultural diversity.
"This year, we have specially planned a film festival section called 'Grand Landscape: A Cinematic Portrait of China', which is divided into three sections to showcase aspirations for, feelings for and beauty of our landscape. The section will use 15 diverse domestic films to celebrate the 105th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China," said Chen Guo, managing director of Shanghai International Film and TV Events Center.
This year's film festival will also stage a special exhibition showcasing more than 500 precious artifacts to display the development of the Shanghai International Film Festival and the Shanghai TV Festival over the past decades.
In addition, cultural and creative pop-up stores have geared up for partnerships with the festival and are expected to launch nearly 60 related products during the event.
Moviegoers express great anticipation for upcoming Shanghai International Film 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
