China's KuaFu project to perform feats of "overtaking rays of the Sun"

The Second International Symposium on Kuafu satellite Project (ISKP-II) was held in Sanya in the south China Island Province of Hainan from January 15 to 19 with participation of about 100 ace space weather scientists from a dozen nations, including China and Canada, and official representatives from the China national Space Administration, the Europe Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

According to relevant Chinese scientists, Kuafu Project is a space storm, aurora and space weather explorer, and its pre-stage work is progressing smoothly, and some 50 to 60 ace scientists have partaken into primary researches into the scheme.

"KuaFu Project to become a core force of the global observation body

The project is based on a popular "Chinese mythological braggadocio who conceived the ambition of overtaking the fleeting rays of the Sun but finally failed and died of thirst in his pursuit". As China steps up its lunar exploration today, Professor Tu Chuanyi from elite Beijing University, also an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and some top scientists in the country initiates another space project, the "KuaFu Mission", with an aim to study the activities of the Sun, which is composed of three "spacecraft" KuaFu A, and KuaFu B1 and B2 to monitor the whole process of chain changes of the sun-earth space resultant from solar activities.

KuaFu-A will be located at the L1, approximately 1.5 million kilometers from the earth surface, an equilibrium point of the gravitational force between the Sun and the earth. If a man-made satellite is set orbiting around this point, it will "focus its eyes" on the sun with special natural advantages to monitor its solar activities and form a comprehensive observing system with KuaFu B1 and B2 that will move around the polar track of the earth.

Year 2012 will be another peak year of solar activity. Scientists acknowledge that if the KuaFu mission is carried out without a hitch in that year, it will join 18 other satellites launched by other nations to form a coordinated monitoring network with the KuaFu itself at the core. To date, only SOHO satellite launched jointly by the United States and Europe and ACE satellite launched by the U.S. are orbiting around L1 point.

As both SOHO and ACE have been in an extended service for years, so the KuaFu mission is all the more vital and important, R. Schwenn, a European space weather authority and an ace German scientist, said, adding that "If we fail to do anything in our trying effort to observe the spewing of solar matters, geomagnetic storm and other space calamities will likely menace the humankind unbridledly."

"KuaFu Project" has two major advantages

The reason why "KuaFu mission" has called attention to the whole world is owed to two major advantages, relevant space weather scientists noted.

First, it can work round the clock to observe the Sun and monitor the occurrence of solar explosion and the process of transmitting solar activity in the sun-earth space. Second, Kuafu B1 and B2 can join to successively observe the entire picture of the global north pole aurora 24 hours a day and seven days a week so that overall changes can be monitored in space or acatmospheric environment near the earth incurred from solar activity. In so doing, the "KuaFu mission" can, with only very limited dispositions of resources, is able to monitor the whole shape of the entire causation chain of the sun-earth space uninterruptedly 24 hours a day.

Furthermore, space weather experts explained that SOHO is used for imagery observation and ACE is for on-site inspection, and the "Kuafu A" is designed to combine the function of KuaFu A with that of the two former ones and, in the meantime, they will form a complete, integrated system to be supplemented by KuaFu B1 and B2.

"Zuiri", or "overtaking the rays of the sun", is faced with 3 technological challenges

At present, the early-stage work of KuaFu Project is well under way, and scientists have started to research on scientific goals, payloads, to preliminarily design the spacecraft launch pad, and to cope with such issues involved in launch, tracking, controlling and data conveying. However, some experts acknowledge frankly the project is still faced with numerous technical challenges.

First, KuaFu A is to be fixed at the L1 point, some 1.5 million km off the earth, a point that has never been reached by any Chinese satellite. Second, ground personnel have to module or debag the satellite so that it will be capable of receiving dim or thin signals from afar and, thirdly, the standards of payload, or facilities loaded in the satellite, have to be upgraded. As a matter of fact, repeated studies are sure to convince specialists that all these knotty problems can be resolved.

KuaFu Mission will be China's most ambitious space research project in the years ahead, which entails first innovative technical-hows in a quite number of specialities, noted William Liu, the current chairman of the "International Living with a Star". Once the project if lifted off, it shall greatly upgrade China's status in the global space research sphere, he said.

By People's Daily Online