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Showing posts with label Science & Technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science & Technology. Show all posts

Friday, January 6, 2023

NASA chief’s hawkish remarks another pathetic attempt, exposes US own hegemony and colonial ambitions

Illustration: Liu Rui/GT m Illustration: Liu Rui/GT 

 

Chinese experts battered the latest round of attacks from NASA chief Bill Nelson, saying his smearing remarks against China's space development are yet another ridiculous and pathetic attempt to hype the "China threat" theory to get more funding, which only exposes the US' own hegemonic and colonial ambitions.

In an interview with POLITICO, Nelson said the race to the moon between the US and China is getting tighter and the next two years could determine who gains the upper hand.

He warned that Beijing could try to "dominate" the locations they step foot on the lunar surface or even try to "keep the US out," while citing the Nansha Islands as an "example" to prove his point. 

The remarks angered Chinese researchers and commentators who have repeatedly made clear that China's exploration of the moon is dedicated to the advancement of humanity. 

"Being a former astronaut himself, it is pathetic that he would play the trick of a thief crying 'stop thief,'" Song Zhongping, a space analyst and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Tuesday. 

It is an established fact written into the United Nations Outer Space Treaty and others that the moon does not belong to any country in the world, while the Nansha Islands are indisputably part of China's territory. Comparing these two shows that Nelson does not even understand international law or the Outer Space Treaty, Song noted.

Nelson's attempt in a way reflects the mentality that the US wants to colonize the moon and consolidate its own hegemony in space, analysts said, evident in the new space version of an "Enclosure Movement" of the Artemis program, which gathered "like-minded" partners such as Canada, Japan and Europe but excludes China and Russia. 

Nelson's remarks failed even to convince its own scholars. Victoria Samson, Washington director of the Secure World Foundation, said she is dubious about the "moon brawl," noting that China, like the US, is a party to the Outer Space Treaty, which bars nations from making territorial claims on any celestial body, including the moon, POLITICO reported.

It will be difficult for any nation to maintain a long-term human presence in deep space, she said, which makes the claims more unrealistic.

Nelson's remarks followed US congressional approval to fund NASA with $24.5 billion in fiscal 2023, about half a billion dollars less than US President Joe Biden had requested.

While still expressing "confidence" that the next moon mission could happen as planned to send a crew into the moon's orbit by 2024, he admitted that the agency is "under intense pressure" because it has been forced, as a cost-saving measure, to reuse all the avionics inside the Artemis I capsule for Artemis II.

Huang Zhicheng, a Chinese expert in aerospace science and technology, told the Global Times on Tuesday that NASA, with a lot on its plate including the operation of the International Space Station, the Artemis program and deep-space exploration projects, is hyping the "China threat" theory to get more money, as the just-concluded Space Launch System is already years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. 

There is still a huge gap in the budget and many problems to solve for the US' manned moon landing to succeed, Huang said. 

Specifically, Boeing that is undertaking the rocket launch tasks for the Artemis program has a chaotic management and it is hard to get the tasks done on time. For another thing, the moon lander being developed by SpaceX is yet to achieve its designated progress, and if the lander cannot be completed successfully this year, it may further delay the entire project, Huang noted. 

Publicly attacking China's space program has become routine for NASA in the past few months. In December, the NASA chief accused China of being "one of the very few nations" that would not be partners with the US and that it is being "very secretive" in terms of space programs. In September, Nelson accused China of lacking needed transparency over issues. In July, the NASA chief blatantly claimed that China is "trying to occupy the moon." In May, he said that China stole the US' space technology. 

"These accusations fired by NASA are unfounded and unjustified," Song said. "China has always had a cooperative and open attitude in the space sector." 

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Chinese aerospace experts slam NASA's chief for 'ridiculous and outrageous' allegations of 'stealing' technology

Chinese aerospace experts on Thursday slammed NASA's Administrator Bill Nelson for his "ridiculous" and "outrageous" remarks after the senior official alleged that China is "good at stealing" American designs in a "space race."

Monday, November 28, 2022

Shenzhou-15 crew to visit China Space Station, conduct 1st crew handover in orbit in China’s space history

 
 

 

 

The line-up of three taikonauts for Shenzhou-15 manned spaceflight mission,Zhang Lu,Fei Junlong,and Deng Qingming(from left to right). Photo: VCG

The line-up of three taikonauts for Shenzhou-15 manned spaceflight mission, Zhang Lu, Fei Junlong, and Deng Qingming (from left to right). Photo: VCG

China on Monday unveiled the line-up of three taikonauts for Shenzhou-15 manned spaceflight mission that is set to be launched on Tuesday night. The trio led by mission commander Fei Junlong with two space newcomers Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu are going to conduct a direct handover in orbit with the Shenzhou-14 crew at the China Space Station in construction, which shall mark a first in China's aerospace history. 

The upcoming Shenzhou-15 crewed spaceflight mission is not only the anchor-leg launch mission at the China Space Station construction stage, but also is the first one to embark on the next operational stage, Fei, the 57-year-old veteran taikonaut who visited the space as the mission commander in the China's Shenzhou-6 mission in 2005, remarked at a press conference on Monday at the Jiuquan Satellite Space Launch Center in Northwest China's Gansu Province. 

The crew will carry out more experiments in orbit, operate, maintain and repair relevant equipment and above all execute even more challenging extravehicular activities, or known as spacewalks, with more complicated paths to take on, Fei said on Monday.

The Shenzhou-15 crew has undergone great amount of specific training, which made them very confident to deliver all the set goals and to successfully complete their space run, Fei said. 

Deng Qingming, 56, is among the first batch of taikonauts trained in China that includes the country's first astronaut Yang Liwei and also his mission commander Fei in the Shenzhou-15 mission. He has served as a backup for nearly 25 years, in missions such as the Shenzhou-9 and 10, but never got the chance to fly. This will be his first time ever in space. 

Zhang Lu, 46, also a new face, was selected in the second batch of taikonauts trained in China in 2010. 

Mission insiders told the Global Times on Monday that the two crews of six taikonauts will carry out the space station handover in a face-to-face manner for the first time in the country's manned space history and that is not only of symbolic significance but also carries great practical values to the overall development of the country's first permanent space outpost.

Sources with China's astronaut training system, told the Global Times on Monday that such feat would enable the predecessor Shenzhou-14 to introduce and share what their work and life would be like inside the space station with the new Shenzhou-15 crew directly, boosting the continuity and efficiency of the handover.

It would also help save the resources to set the space station combo from occupied state to unoccupied one and then back again. And the handover will be more target-oriented, especially for those ongoing experiments and space station maintenance work, the sources said. 

Having six taikonauts simultaneously onboard the China Space Station in construction, would also verify its performance under the full load condition, which would lay groundwork for future tasks where more payload technicians are needed for more complicated experiments, Song Zhongping, a space watcher and TV commentator, told the Global Times.   

By plan, the handover will last for a week or so, and after that, Shenzhou-14 crew will return to the Dongfeng landing site on Earth. 

As the temperature drops to somewhere near minus 20 C in Jiuquan around this time of the year, the launch of Shenzhou-15, which is via a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan center, also faces a special challenge of extremely low temperature.

According to the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), the developer of the Long March-2F rocket, Shenzhou spacecraft had only been launched twice in unscrewed condition during the Shenzhou-1 and 4 missions in late November. Shenzhou-15 would be first one to be carried out with taikonauts onboard in the cold weather. 

However, the CALT explained that they have taken such unique challenge into consideration. They have also confirmed the two sets of the temperature system inside the rocket's nose cone, to make sure that the temperature of the propellant of the return and propelling module meets the launch condition. 

Major tasks of Shenzhou-15 mission

Major tasks of Shenzhou-15 mission

To-do list 

At a press briefing on Monday at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, Ji Qiming, assistant to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) director, said that Shenzhou-15 is the final launch during the construction phase of China Space Station, as well as the opening of the application phase of the station. 

They will stay in space for six months and return to the ground in May next year. The main objectives of the mission include verifying the space station's ability to support crew rotation and achieving the first in-orbit handover with the Shenzhou-14 members. 

According to the mission plan, the Shenzhou-15 spacecraft will conduct a fast, automated rendezvous and docking with the space station combo at Tianhe core module's front port and then form a new combo of three space crafts and three modules. 

It will be the largest structure of the China Space Station to date with a total mass of nearly 100 tons. 

Major works across the Shenzhou-15 are categorized into six aspects, including the verification of long-term stays in the space station combo, the unlocking, installation and testing of 15 science experiment cabinets and carrying out more than 40 experiments in the fields of space science research and applications, space medicine and space technology, among others. 

They will conduct three to four extravehicular activities during the mission to complete extension pump set and platform equipment onboard the Mengtian lab module. 

The Shenzhou-15 crew will also verify the exiting of cargo airlock cabin and complete six cargo exiting tasks in cooperation with the ground. They will witness the arrival of the Tianzhou-6 cargo craft and Shenzhou-16 manned spaceship. They will also have a work handover with the Shenzhou-16 crew in orbit.

Open for cooperation

After Mengtian lab module conducted successful transposition in orbit at 9:32 am on November 3, China Space Station has completed its T-shape basic structure assembly in orbit. China has conducted 11 space launches with perfect success rate within 20 months at the space station construction stage and the China Space Station is set to become operational within 2022.

Zhou Jianping, chief designer of China's manned space program, told the Global Times that the life support system of the China Space Station is one of the most advanced innovations onboard and shows China's space strength. 

Without the home developed life support system, the crew of three taikonauts would need to consume supplies weighing around 8 tons a year. But now it takes only 400 kilograms, as 95 percent of the supplies including oxygen and water, could be obtained with the help of the life support system, Zhou said. 

In addressing international cooperation as it related to the space station, Ji from the CMSA said a number of space science application projects China jointly selected with UNOOSA and ESA are being implemented as planned, and the relevant payloads will begin to enter the Chinese space station next year.

"We have always welcomed astronauts from other countries to enter the China Space Station to conduct experiments. We have received requests from several countries to send astronauts to participate in our space station missions, and we are coordinating with relevant parties and actively preparing for the training of foreign astronauts," Ji said.

On November 1, Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson with the Chinese Foreign Ministry, responded to media inquiries upon the successful docking of Mengtian space lab, the third and final part of China Space Station's three-module structure earlier that day, by saying that China always relies on its own capabilities in its manned space program, and at the same time actively engages the world. 

China's Space Station is the first of its kind to be open to all UN member states. So far a number of science experiment projects from 17 countries including Switzerland, Poland, Germany and Italy have been included in the selected projects of China Space Station, Zhao said. 

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Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Artemis I launch canceled amid NASA chief hyping ‘space race’, as China's top space contractor CASC reveals new launch vehicle able to send Chinese to Moon by around 2030

Accusing China of "occupying the moon" exposes the America’s ambitions to monopolize space

 

A NASA helicopter flies past the agency's Space Launch System rocket on August 29, 2022. NASA called off the test flight on Monday of its largest-ever Moon rocket, citing engine problem. Photo: AFP


System (SLS) rocket carrying the Orion capsule remained on the ground at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday, disappointing people who gathered at the center and those who tuned in live to watch US' rekindling of lunar surface landing project since the Apollo program some half a century ago.

"The launch of Artemis I is no longer happening today as teams work through an issue with an engine bleed. Teams will continue to gather data, and we will keep you posted on the timing of the next launch attempt," NASA posted on Twitter. According to the New York Times, NASA has another window in early September, but it also depends on whether bugs are fixed.

Before the postponement was decided, NASA repeatedly stopped and restarted the fueling of SLS with nearly 1 million gallons of super-cold hydrogen and oxygen due to the leak in Kennedy Space Center, US media said.

The postponed launch came after China's state-owned space giant China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) announced about a week earlier that China's new-generation manned rocket, which is currently under development, will possess the capability to send taikonauts to the moon by around 2030.

Qian Hang, a senior Chinese expert on aerospace science, told the Global Times that the success of the Apollo Program (1961-1972) helped the US to outcompete Soviet Union, but it also cost the US countless economic and technological resources. Therefore, after the lunar landing, the US shifted its focus from the moon to the space shuttle, space station project, Mars exploration and other projects.

In recent years, many countries, including China and India, have developed rapidly in the space industry, putting pressure on the US. Especially after China made a breakthrough with its Chang'e-5 unmanned lunar mission, which brought back lunar soil samples.

Hours before the scheduled launch, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian stressed on Monday that the outer space is not an arena for countries to wrestle, but an important field for win-win cooperation. And the exploration and peaceful use of outer space is the common cause of mankind and should be pursued for the benefit of all mankind.

Zhao's remarks were viewed as a response to NASA's Administrator Bill Nelson who has recently expressed "concerns" about the "space race" that China would arrive first and claim the moon's territory. If NASA's following missions are carried out as scheduled, US astronauts could land on the moon again as soon as 2025, five years earlier than China's plan.

China has always been committed to the peaceful use of outer space and has conducted extensive cooperation with other countries to safeguard outer space security, Zhao said, noting that China hopes all countries will continue to work together to promote the peaceful use of outer space and make greater contribution to the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.


Beachgoers wait for the launch of the Artemis I unmanned lunar rocket, in Florida. Photos: AFP

Arduous task

According to NASA, the Orion will reach a retrograde orbit around the moon, traveling 2.1 million kilometers in 42 days. The mission will test the heat shield function of Orion capsule, and carry some small satellites to be placed in moon's orbit.

If everything about the Artemis I mission goes on well, the second scheduled flight, the Artemis II is expected to launch SLS megarocket around the moon as early as 2024, testing key systems of the Orion spacecraft with humans on board.

The Artemis III launch date is set for 2025 if the previous programs go as plan. Besides, space experts said optimistic progress on new spacesuit development and human landing systems are also necessary.

However, according to evaluation from NASA's inspector general office, due to anticipated delay of the spacesuit development, NASA's hopeful timeline is "not only unlikely, but even impossible."

Besides, the Lunar Gateway, a human-tended space station orbiting the moon that provides necessary support for long-term human return to lunar surface and a staging point for deep space exploration, has dragged the two Artemis missions to an "unsustainable crawl," due to its building cost, according to the Hill.

Citing NASA's Inspector General, CNBC reported that the space agency is projected to spend $93 billion on the Artemis up to the fiscal year 2025. And the cost of a single SLS launch is about $4.1 billion, which NASA inspector general Paul Martin expressed his concern and described it as "unsustainable."

Wang Yanan, chief editor of Beijing-based Aerospace Knowledge magazine, told the Global Times on Monday that "return to the moon" will not be an easy task for the US despite its advancement in science and technology.

With so much money invested in Mars exploration and the International Space Station missions, it is doubtful that there will be sufficient and timely resources to achieve America's challenging goals of returning to moon in 2025, Wang said.

To cope with difficulties, the US has involved commercial space efforts. US media said that Elon Musk's SpaceX, which has participated in Artemis III mission's landing site selection, plans to build a vehicle that will land US astronauts on the lunar surface. Besides, NASA also had its astronauts visiting SpaceX facilities for hardware tests.

Involving commercial efforts showed NASA's forward-looking vision, but whether NASA has a set of efficient management mechanism of regulating these enterprises is uncertain. For NASA, it may be about engineering and technical maturity and reliability, but companies may be more concerned about share price and financing, Wang said.

'Space race'

In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, NASA's Administrator Bill Nelson said that China's space ambitions have provided motivation for Artemis, according to the New York Times. Nelson said he doesn't want Chinese astronauts to arrive first and claim the territory and resources, describing that there's a "space race" between the two countries.

In an interview with a German newspaper in July, Nelson smeared China for "trying to take over the moon" and saying China's mentality is like "it's ours now and you stay out."

Experts said Nelson's inflammatory remarks are full of smears against China, which is actually not as fast as the US in scheduled time for landing on the moon. CASC disclosed on August 21 that China's new-generation manned rocket, which is currently under development, will possess the capability to send taikonauts to the moon by around 2030.

The SLS-level megarocket is still under development in China, but in the US, one is now standing on the launchpad, a senior Chinese expert on aerospace science and technology based in Beijing, told the Global Times on condition of anonymity.

The malicious speculation and smearing of China from Nelson are totally ill-intentioned, the expert said, "Since the dawn of the age of human exploration of space, no country has ever claimed some of the resources of outer space, especially when there's regulation from UN framework convention on cooperation in outer space."

By using such colonialist rhetoric to smear China, the US wants to pressure countries interested in cooperating with China in space, and force some countries to take sides on the issue of space exploration, the expert told the Global Times on Monday.

China has its own pace and has no interest in competing with the US to land on the moon faster, the Beijing-based expert said. "China hopes to make lunar exploration a long-term and internationally cooperative project. China's larger goal is to benefit more people rather than to compete for resources like the US."

In January, China and Russia revealed a plan to jointly build a moon base by 2027, media reported. Dubbed the International Lunar Research Station, it will be a complex of research facilities for moon exploration, observation and experiment.

Some other developing countries do not have the technical capacity and economic resources to build an outer space exploration program from scratch, but the cooperation between China and Russia will give more developing countries the opportunity to participate, he said.




China's top space contractor CASC reveals new launch vehicle able to send Chinese to Moon by around 2030
Long March-5 Y5 carrier rocket commissioned for the Chang'e-5 lunar mission has started fuel injection and is set to launch the probe on Nov 24, 2020, between 4 to 5 am at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in South China's Hainan Province. Photo: VCG

China's new-generation manned rocket, which is currently under development, will possess the capability to send taikonauts to the Moon by around 2030, Global Times has learned from China's state-owned space giant China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).

A CASC spokesperson made the remarks to the media after the Long March 2D carrier rocket smoothly sent the remote sensing Yaogan-35 04 group of satellites on early Saturday morning, which saw the country's Long March rocket series breaking its own record with 103 consecutive successful space launch missions.

According to the CASC spokesperson, the country's super heavy-lift launch vehicle, which is also under development, will receive further strengthening to become capable of sending payloads of 50 tons to the Earth-Moon transfer orbit on completion, in order to support future lunar activity.

CASC is also working on a series of reusable space launch and transport systems, which will greatly boost the country's space shuttle capability, lowering costs and empowering future development in this domain, the spokesperson said, per a statement the CASC provided to the Global Times.

Meanwhile, the US is busy preparing for the launch of the massive Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which is set to take place on the morning of August 29 [US local time] from the US Kennedy Space Center for the Artemis I mission - the first test of NASA's deep space exploration systems.

The Artemis I, according to the US space center, will be the first in a series of missions to demonstrate NASA's ability to extend human existence to the Moon and beyond.

The US series' first crewed flight, the Artemis III, will see boots on the lunar surface no earlier than 2026, more than half a century since NASA successfully sent humans to the moon in December 1972 in the Apollo 17 mission.

The US website space.com pointed out in an article on Friday that the 2026 mission is still "highly uncertain," given that the mission is relatively far away, but NASA does have some early-stage planning for the later 2020s.

The timeline for these missions depends a great deal on how much funding the agency receives from US Congress, along with the technical progress of the Artemis program, the report said.

Even if NASA could pull off the ambitious plan, it would already be a two-year delay as the US space agency has abandoned its original goal of sending humans to the moon by 2024.

Drawing a comparison between the lunar manned landing plans of China and the US, Chinese space experts pointed out that the US' practice of setting specific year deadlines is very rare in the industry, given the complex nature of deep space exploration, while China focuses more on technology readiness in a rather broad time frame, going forward steadily and surely.

China's crewed moon landing is more in line with scientific principles, but NASA might grow more hostile against China in the space domain given the huge pressure it is facing to maintain its global leadership in moon exploration, Wang Ya'nan, chief editor of the Beijing-based Aerospace Knowledge magazine, told the Global Times on Sunday, when asked if there would be a new space race between space powers around 2030. 

NASA chief Bill Nelson warned in July of a new "space race" with China, in a groundless accusation that China wants to "occupy the moon," citing the lunar research base that China and Russia are co-building, which he is "very concerned about."

It is very likely that in order to meet the goals of the Artemis mission, given its tight timeline, NASA will further open management access of the International Space Station (ISS) to commercial space players such as SpaceX after 2024, as Russia has warned of its intention to pull out from the ISS by that year, and shift focus and resources to its lunar plans, Wang noted.

Space observers also pointed out that as NASA is trying hard to relive its Apollo glories, China is working on innovative plans to carry out its own crewed moon landing missions.

Even without the new-generation manned rocket and super-heavy lift launch vehicle, leading Chinese rocket scientist Long Lehao revealed in August 2021, China could use two rocket launches to send two taikonauts to the moon by around 2030.

Long, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chief designer of the Long March rockets, said during a speech that China was planning to use new variants of the Long March-5 launch vehicle - the strongest member of the Long March rocket family - to carry out the manned space launch missions.

Long referred to the new variant as Long March-5 DY, which stands for "dengyue," meaning "lunar landing" in Chinese.

Two rockets carrying a lunar lander and a next-generation manned spaceship will be launched for the mission, and the two parts of the spacecraft will rendezvous and dock in near-lunar orbit, before executing the landing process. The two taikonauts are expected to work on the moon's surface for some six hours, according to Long. However, there is no mention of a specific landing site.

The new manned spaceship will then take off from the moon and carry out another docking with the orbiting module before heading back to Earth. 


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Thursday, August 11, 2022

Tech war: Pelosi meets TSMC chief in Taiwan as US ramps up chip pressure on China

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 US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi waves to journalists during her arrival at the Parliament in Taipei on Wednesday. Photo: AFP 

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi waves to journalists during her arrival at the Parliament in Taipei on Wednesday. Photo: AFP

 US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday spoke with the chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s leading contract chip maker, during her visit to the island, to discuss an American legislative proposal, according to a report from Taiwanese news agency CNA.

The discussions between Pelosi and Mark Liu touched on the Chips and Science Act, which was approved by the US House of Representatives and Senate last week, Ker Chein-ming, chief commissioner of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan’s parliament, was quoted as saying.

The new US legislation is widely seen as Washington’s plan to weaken China’s role in global semiconductor supply chains.

 

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrives in Taiwan as Beijing announces live-fire military drills

Pelosi’s appointment with TSMC executives did not appear on her official itinerary, which was packed with high-profile meetings with Taiwan officials, including President Tsai Ing-wen, legislature deputy speaker Tsai Chi-chang and Vice-President William Lai, among others.

TSMC declined to comment on the meeting, which was also reported by The Washington Post.

Pelosi’s decision to carve out time for a meeting with TSMC during her whirlwind tour shows the strategic importance of Taiwan – which Beijing claims as China’s territory – in providing advanced semiconductors that are crucial to both China and the US.

TSMC is currently building a 5-nanometre semiconductor factory in the US state of Arizona, which is set to be operational in 2024, although it is expected to produce chips that lag behind the ones it will be making in Taiwan at the time.

Pelosi’s high-profile visit comes as Washington has raised its efforts to curb the development of China’s chip industry, which has grown by relying on imported technologies.

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In addition to the chips act, which promises US$52 billion in subsidies to semiconductor firms building fabs on American soil, Washington has also been promoting the so-called Chip 4 Alliance – a partnership envisioned by the US to include South Korea, Japan and Taiwan – to exclude China.

US officials are also lobbying Dutch chip equipment giant ASML to stop selling more lithography systems to wafer fabs in China.

 
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s chip fabrication plants in Taiwan. Photo: Handout

While scant details of the discussions between Pelosi and Liu have emerged, reports of the meeting itself have already stirred unease in mainland China.

Xiang Ligang, a Beijing-based analyst who had blamed TSMC for withholding its state-of-the-art technologies from the mainland, said the cross-strait chip industry will focus on competition rather than cooperation, as China is determined to improve its chip production capability.

“Taiwan is only using the resources, talent and markets [on the mainland] for the sake of its own development,” Xiang said, adding that if TSMC sides with the US, it would cast a shadow over the company’s future development on the mainland.

TSMC only builds chips with older technologies in mainland China because Taiwanese law mandates that Taiwanese foundries, such as TSMC, only build products that are at least two generations behind the most advanced technologies available in Taiwan.

China still relies on TSMC’s home base and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics to supply the most advanced chips used in smartphones, as mainland chip plants still lag Taiwanese and South Korean firms by “generations”.

While China’s top chip maker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp, may have achieved the ability to make 7-nm chips, according to Canadian analytics firm TechInsight, the Shanghai-based company has neither confirmed nor denied the report.

The Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp headquarters in Shanghai. Photo; BloombergThe Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp headquarters in Shanghai. Photo; Bloomberg

The leading-edge chip-making capabilities of TSMC, which Taiwanese people call “the sacred mountain of protection”, have long fanned speculation that Beijing would one day take the island by force.

TSMC’s Liu said in an interview with CNN this week that nobody can control the firm by force because any military operation or “invasion” would “render TSMC factories inoperable”. He also said that TSMC should not be discriminated against simply because it is “close to China”.

TSMC operates a 12-inch foundry in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing to make chips on mature 16-nm and 28-nm processes. It also has a 8-inch wafer fab in Shanghai.

Pelosi wrapped up her Taiwan tour, which prompted strongly-worded warnings from Beijing, on Wednesday afternoon. She boarded a US Air Force aircraft, accompanied by five US congress members, for the fourth leg of her Asia tour – South Korea.

Before leaving the island, Pelosi tweeted, “Make no mistake: America remains unwavering in our commitment to the people of Taiwan – now & for decades to come.” 

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 Che Pan

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Che Pan joined the Post as a technology reporter in 2020, based in Beijing. Before this, he worked as a China economy reporter at Caixin Global, with a particular focus on the macro-economy, trade and real estate. He has a master degree in Financial Regulation and Risk Management. 

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 Notes:

My media friend from Taiwan said that the most important meeting in Pelosi’s schedule was not with the DPP authorities or President Tsai, but a meeting she specifically demanded with the CEO of TSMC, the leading manufacturer of the world’s most advanced semiconductors set up by Chiang Ching-Kuo and his technocrats, Sun Yun-Suan and Morris Chang, during the pinnacle of Taiwan's economic miracle in the 1980s. TSMC is the designer and manufacturer of the super awesome M2 chips powering our iPhones and Macbooks.

US Congress has passed bills forcing TSMC to set up chip fabs in Arizona and transfer their technology to the US, even though this is very much against the wishes of TSMC management. TSMC has repeatedly said that costs in the US are too high, and there are not enough quality engineers with the skills needed in the US. But the US Commerce Department and US Congress don’t care because they are run by lawyers who are only good at issuing sanctions and threatening other countries through legislation and the power of the US military.

In short, Pelosi and the US Congress do not give a damn about Taiwan's "democracy". They only care that TSMC’s fabs and engineering know-how are wholesale transferred to the US and don’t ever fall in China’s hands. This was the reason behind her demand to meet TSMC’s management while she was in Taiwan.

Poor Taiwan. It is getting stripped of its TSMC crown jewel and assets by the US even before it has died. 

 

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Friday, July 29, 2022

US pushes chip bill to encircle China, but ‘unable to lure firms to decouple with mainland’

 

US 'Chips Alliance' scheme will exacerbate global chip crunch. Illustration: Chen Xia/GT

 

A chip manufacture machine Photo: VCG

A chip manufacture machine Photo: VCG

 

The US Senate on Wednesday passed a chip bill that is intended to counter China's high-tech rise under the guise of shoring up US competitiveness and protecting national security, a "dream" that is very difficult to achieve considering problems like mounting debts and industrial hollowing-out in the world's largest economy, experts said.

r countries and regions that have been kidnapped by the US bill to secede their chip supply chains from China, some might make symbolic gestures to follow the US orders but postpone real actions, like setting factories in the US, because what the US is pushing runs counter to their tangible benefits, observers noted.

The bill, aimed at boosting US semiconductor production, passed the US Senate 64-33 on Wednesday and will move to the House and US President Joe Biden for approval, US media reported.

The package, known as "CHIPS-plus," includes about $52 billion of funding for US companies making computer chips, a provision that offers a tax credit for investment in chip production, as well as funding to spur innovation and development of other US technologies, the report noted.

Although US officials have used many expressions to justify the bill, like economic security, national security or "America's future," its real intention of containing China's development has nowhere to hide judging from the bill's requirement for companies to pick only one of two choices - business ties with China, or subsidies from the US government.

The legislation would prohibit companies from expanding their semiconductor manufacturing in China for 10 years after they take a grant to build a US plant, Bloomberg reported on July 18. Companies could continue to invest in "legacy" chip manufacturing in China, but the definition of that term is unresolved.

"The US is using the bill to force companies in countries and regions of key status on the global chip supply and industrial chains to play by US rules, as well as encircling and suppressing chip industries in emerging markets," Wang Peng, a research fellow at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Gao Lingyun, an expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing, told the Global Times on Wednesday that the bill is aimed at containing China's development and putting the US on a more competitive footing with China in the technological edge.

Stuck in difficult position

As US officials mount efforts to push the bill toward passage, which experts interpreted as shifting from a "stick" approach by forcing companies to leave China to a "carrot" tactic with subsidies as bait. Chip companies, either in the US or in other countries and regions, are finding themselves in the difficult position of having to take sides.

A CNBC report noted that the CHIPS act has elicited divided responses from the US chip industry, as some players are concerned that the bill could provide disproportionate support to manufacturers like Intel while doing little to support other chip firms that do not produce chips by themselves.

But even companies like Intel are not one hundred percent satisfied with the bill. According to a report from Politico, Intel and other chipmakers are lobbying to curtail limitations on their operations in China.

Experts stressed that large US chip companies always know that globalized distribution is the best option for them, as the mode has supported their business growth over many years.

"If companies build plants in the US, where do they get cheap labor and construction materials from? How do they cover their factory operating expenses? Why build a factory where the end market is far away?" questioned Ma Jihua, a veteran technology analyst.

Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Beijing-based Information Consumption Alliance, said on Wednesday that for some large US companies, getting the subsidies and giving up the Chinese market will mean more losses than gains. For instance, Intel is unlikely to completely give up the Chinese market, which accounts for 20 to 30 percent of its entire annual revenue.

For US allies like Japan and South Korea, whose semiconductor industrial chains are deeply integrated with the Chinese mainland market, the situation is even more difficult.

"If they listen to the US, their companies might get tens of billions of dollars from the US, but they will lose hundreds of billions of dollars or even more due to decoupling with the mainland markets," Ma said.

They will not only lose Chinese chip customers, but could also see spillover effects on other products as well, similar to how South Korean companies suffered in Chinese mainland market after the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) crisis, the expert said.

Ma anticipates that Japan is prone to saying yes to Biden but would not cut its cooperation with China in reality, while South Korea is likely to face severe opposition from its large chipmakers.

Xiang said that enterprises from Japan and South Korea may make some symbolic adjustments under this bill, like building factories in the US, but they may repeatedly postpone such investments because of the high cost of the technology.

The US proposed the idea of the "Chip 4" semiconductor alliance and sent invitations to Japan, South Korea and China's Taiwan island. Though South Korea may ultimately join the bloc, Seoul's long hesitation to give a clear answer is evident of its dilemma.

Plan invalid

Experts said that the effect of the US chip bill may not meet the US' anticipation in reshaping the world's semiconductor supply chains, in which China now play an important role in producing parts.

For example, Gao Lingyun from CASS said that the overall cost of making chips in the US is not very competitive on the global market, primarily due to its high labor cost, although it might have strong abilities in upstream industrial sections like research and development.

"Past experience showed that efforts to set up a chip facility in the US, for example the US plant of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), has progressed slowly, which further underscores the difficulty of setting up chip factories in the US," he told the Global Times.

Other factors are straining the US as well, such as mounting debts that are restricting Washington's abilities to materialize subsidies, their manufacturing hollowing-out that leads to insufficiency in everything from workers to materials, as well as the fact that the US might soon have another president, analysts said.

According to Ma, there could be two results with the passage of the bill. First, it will not be implemented properly. Second, the US government could return to the "stick" approach if it receives scant support from companies. If the second way becomes reality, the world's semiconductor industry, which is already facing downward pressure, might enter a dark period with many companies going bankrupt, he said.

A worker checks a chip at Jade Bird Fire Co in Zhangjiakou, North China's Hebei Province, on March 27, 2022. Jade Bird makes firefighting products. Its self-developed Zhuhuan chip, which integrates fire detection capability, communication technology and integrated circuit technology, is widely used in China. Photo: VCGA worker checks a chip at Jade Bird Fire Co in Zhangjiakou, North China's Hebei Province, on March 27, 2022. Jade Bird makes firefighting products. Its self-developed Zhuhuan chip, which integrates fire detection capability, communication technology and integrated circuit technology, is widely used in China. Photo: VCG

China's rise

Despite US attempts to reshape the world's chip supply chains to a US-led one, China's chip industry is developing in a stable manner, be it the technologies or the markets, inspiring confidence among analysts that China will make breakthroughs in key chip technologies in about three to five years.

According to South Korean Customs statistics, South Korea's exports to China totaled $13.4 billion in May this year, while imports reached $14.9 billion, showing a deficit on the South Korean side for the first time, electronics information portal ijiwei.com reported.

One important stimulus for the situation is that China's exports of semiconductor products, which account for about one-sixth of the country's total exports to South Korea, surged 40.9 percent in the month, data provided by the Korea International Trade Association showed.

Besides, the rising popularity of China's electronic products like mobile phones has boosted demand for domestic chip products. For example, Chinese mobile phone brand Xiaomi recently launched a phone equipped with a China-made chip JR510, according to media reports.

On the technology side, Chinese companies are also making rapid progress. The country's chip giant Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) said it had made a breakthrough in the first generation FinFET technology and entered mass production in Q4 of 2019, while the tech's second generation, rendered equivalent to the 7nm and 5nm manufacturing process of TSMC, is also in a period of pilot production.

SMIC's profits surged 147.7 percent on a yearly basis in 2021 in yuan's terms, the company's annual report showed.

According to Ma, China's sense of urgency for chip industrial independence has enhanced a lot over recent years. This is giving rise to strengthened input, from the industrial, research and university sides, into the industry, bringing positive results such as a surge in chip product categories from hundreds to thousands.

In terms of technologies, China is also "leaping in progress," he said, adding that though China still has several technological bottlenecks to break through, it should be able to solve those bottlenecks after 3-5 years of stable development.

Xiang predicted that the large-scale storage in China's chip industry will start in 2023, as compared with chips from Europe, the US and South Korea, China's domestic chips are of good quality, priced about 60 percent lower than that of other countries.

"In a sense, Chinese companies already have the ability to produce high-end chips, and they just need time to achieve mass production. The US chip blockade for China has in turn greatly facilitated the development of the country's chip industry," Xiang said. 

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Wednesday, July 27, 2022

CHINA ADDS SECOND SCIENCE LABORATORY TO ORBITING SPACE STATION

 

Before the end of this year, China will complete the construction of the space station. The Chinese Space Administration has announced that the Chinese space station will be open to countries around the world. Now 17 countries have become the first partners of the Chinese space station (including India), and they will board the Chinese space station for scientific research and exploration. Of course, the US is the only exception.

The United States has been clamoring for fierce competition with China, and China is now showing the United States what true competition is in all areas. 

 

 

Shenzhou-14 crew enters Wentian lab module, as China's space station is near completion

 

The Shenzhou-14 crew members, Chen Dong (center), Liu Yang (right) and Cai Xuzhe salute from the Wentian (Quest to The Heavens) lab module on July 25, 2022 from some 400 kilometers above the Earth. The three taikonauts checked in to their office and home unit in space at 10:03 am. Photo: cnsphoto

The Shenzhou-14 crew of three taikonauts, who watched live the epic launch of the Wentian [Quest to The Heavens] lab module from some 400 kilometers above the Earth and cheered it on with applause on Sunday, did not wait long to check into their office and home unit in space, as they opened the gate of the freshly docked new module and entered the Wentian at 10:03 am on Monday, the Global Times learned from the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).

It was a historic first that the taikonauts entered the scientific lab module in orbit, the CMSA noted in a statement it provided to the Global Times on Monday morning, while disclosing that the crew shall execute missions including space station combination attitude control, verification of robotic arms, and use of the Wentian airlock and its small robotic arm to perform spacewalks under the plan.

The Wentian lab module conducted a smooth rendezvous and docking with the China Space Station's Tianhe core module at the front port at 3:13 am on Monday, some 13 hours after it was launched via a giant Long March-5B carrier rocket from South China's tropical island province of Hainan.

It was a first for two pieces of 20-ton level spacecraft to execute the "heavenly kiss" in the country's history, and it also marked an unprecedented milestone event that took place while the China Space Station combination was carrying taikonauts onboard, the CMSA announced.

Before China, only the former Soviet Union and the US were capable of assembling ultra-large spacecraft in orbit.

Designed mainly to support space science and biology experiments, the 23-ton Wentian lab module is heavier than any other single-module spacecraft currently in space, including those with the International Space Station (ISS), the Global Times learned from the mission contractor, the state-owned space giant China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC).

The Wentian also hosts eight experimental cabinets onboard. It will mainly focus on the study of space life sciences, which can support the growth, development, genetics and aging of multiple species of plants, animals and microorganisms under space conditions, Lü Congmin, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and deputy chief designer of the space utilization system of China Manned Space programs, told the Global Times.

More than 10 research directions have been planned and more than 40 scientific projects have been established for the Wentian, Lü said.

To meet the high energy requirements for the large number of scientific experiments in space, the Wentian is equipped with a pair of the largest flexible solar panels that the country has ever developed.

The full wingspan of the solar panels on the Wentian is more than 55 meters, longer than half a soccer field, and each panel has an unfolded area of about 110 square meters. Photo: Courtesy of CASC

The full wingspan of the solar panels on the Wentian is more than 55 meters, longer than half a soccer field, setting a new record for solar panels used for China's spacecraft. Each panel has an unfolded area of about 110 square meters, the Global Times learned from the developers.

The two solar panels will effectively collect more solar energy, generating an average of more than 430 kilowatt hours per day and providing sufficient power for space station operations. If placed on Earth, the daily power generation of the solar panels would be enough to support the power demand of an average Beijing household for a month and a half.

During the "heavenly kiss," the enormous wings of the Wentian unfolded in two stages by plan, where the solar panels were only partially unfolded to sustain the power supply needed during the docking and became fully unfolded afterwards, which was done to avoid any damage from the impact of two giant modules with fully unfolded wings.

Explaining to the Global Times, the solar panel system developer, the Shanghai Academy of Spacecraft Technology, said that if the Wentian's wings were unfolded all at once, it would be approaching the Tianhe core module with one giant sail on each side. In that case, even trivial shaking of the sail would affect the control precision of the velocity, relative location and attitude control of the Wentian, so that it would add difficulties to its safe rendezvous and docking with the Tianhe module.

The Global Times learned from the Second Academy of the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) that microwave radar developed by the academy's 25th institute also played a guiding role in the rendezvous and docking process.

Also, the Wentian is equipped with a urine recycling system developed by the CASIC's second academy Institute 206, the second of its kind onboard the China Space Station combination. The first was installed on the Tianhe core module and successfully supported the space stays of the Shenzhou-12 and -13 crews. The urine recycling system on the Wentian will serve as a backup for the Tianhe, the CASIC told the Global Times.

According to the official plan, the Mengtian, another space lab, will be launched in October.

And before that, the Wentian will move to the right side of the Tianhe core cabin, forming an L-shaped structure, China Space News, the official joint news outlet of the China Aerospace Science and the Technology Corp and the China Academy of Space Technology, reported. For this to happen, the Shenzhou-14 taikonauts will perform three complex steering maneuvers to adjust the Wentian to a vertical position with the help of the robotic arm.

In the coming months, people on Earth will be able to witness the construction of the China Space Station, which will be completed at a speed that has no precedent in mankind's history.

The first ever space station in history, the Salyut 1, launched by the former Soviet Union, had its core module delivered into orbit in 1986. In 10 years' time, the station completed the assembly of six modules with a total weight of 130 tons.

Construction began on the ISS in 1998 and took 12 years, with the coordination of 15 countries, to build its 15-module structure.

The China Space Station is planned to become fully operational before the end of 2022, aiming to accomplish the in-orbit assembly of the country's most ambitious program in less than one year and a half since the launch of the Tianhe core module in April 2021. 

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Science
A recent report by US magazine The National Interest demonized China's achievements in space by interpreting China's space exploration missions, including the lunar program and manned spaceflight, as "threats to US leadership in space" and a "detriment to US national security." This report is just the tip of iceberg in the US' sustained attempts to suppress and discredit China's space program. The US has also published military reports that incorrectly describe China's military capabilities in space, with the new NASA chief personally slandering China's space achievements, to promote the mindset of a new Cold War in space and the "China threat" theory. But facts show that the US is the biggest threat in space with its space hegemony based on its technological advantages. Meanwhile, China sees space as a new field to expand international cooperation while sharing its achievements with other countries by providing them with opportunities to make use of space resources.
 

 

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