China is determined to improve its international standing and envisions Tiangong, its orbital outpost, as a space station open to scientists from all over the world, not just those working in countries with well-established space programs.
“We are open to more international cooperation and exchanges, with countries and regions committed towards the peaceful use of outerspace,” Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, stated in April.
For the International Space Station—a partnership of NASA, Russia, Canada, the European Space Agency, and Japan that has been in orbit for more than two decades—lab resources are divided among the partner nations, which then provide their scientists with opportunities to send experiments to the space station.
Scientists who are not part of the partnership are usually denied access to the International Space Station.
During a UN program called “Access to Space for All”,China has offered scientists of any country the chance to transfer their experiments from Earth to the Tiangong spacestation.
The United Nations announced a first round of nine awards for 2019, including projects from India, Peru and Mexico.
POLAR-2 is one of the chosen experiments. It is an international effort led the University of Geneva in order to study distant gamma ray bursts.
Gamma-ray bursts, which are caused by merging neutron stars or exploding stars, are some of the most powerful explosions in the universe. Gamma Rays, which are high-energy photons traveling through the universe, are created by short, intense explosions.
POLAR-2, as its name suggests is the follow-up of POLAR. It’s a smaller detector that flew towards a smaller Chinese space lab.
“Historically, the University of Geneva has had a strong connection with Chinese research groups,” said Merlin Kole, project manager for POLAR-2, which is scheduled to launch in Tiangong in 2025.
The experiment tests whether the gamma radiations from a gammaray burst line-up in a particular way. More than a decade ago, measurements made by an instrument on a Japanese spacecraft indicated that gamma rays were often linearly polarized—that is, the oscillating electric fields of the gamma rays were parallel to each other like a swarm of planes flying on a plane instead. Deflected wings in all directions.
But data from POLAR which flew in 2016 showed that the gamma-rays were not polarized.
The idea of launching a larger follow-on satellite into space was explored by polar scientists. They decided to not build their own satellite.
“It’s going be more complicated in general,” Agnieszka Polo, an Astrophysicist at Poland’s National Center for Nuclear Research, and principal investigator for the Polish Polar-2 collaboration, said.
Dr. Polo said that the International Space Station was not viable because there is a lot to choose from and it’s not easy or cheap.
Dr. Kole said that Tiangong’s research opportunity was announced “relatively quickly” and that they were able offer something.
Tiangong’s high speed communication system will allow data to be sent to Earth daily in the tens of gigabytes range. Scientists can analyze all data sent to Earth every day, and identify fragments of detection such as very weak Gamma-ray bursts, or other astrophysical events.
A supercomputer is also available on the space station for analyzing data while it is in orbit. This supercomputer will be able to quickly calculate the origin of a gamma radiation burst. Dr Cole explained that this information could be shared with astronomers at ground for quick observation with other telescopes.
Dr Cole stated that so far cooperation with Chinese space officials is going well, even though it can mean wading through Chinese bureaucracy.
He stated that “there are many agencies involved” and that “we don’t talk directly to all of them.” “And that makes it a little difficult sometimes. But when we really need to know something, we figure it out.”
The $2 million tool was built largely in Europe, and then shipped to China. The project also involved bureaucracy and paperwork.
Dr. Cole said, “We don’t give out secrets. Of course.” “All the ingredients are relatively easy and there’s nothing secret. It’s a scientific tool. But, yeah, there’s no very clear bureaucratic channel to do it right.”
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