300 times the coverage

(From Popular Science)

By Jeffrey Lin and P.W. Singer

While China’s manned space program has been getting a lot of attention, the country is also becoming a superpower in space exploration and science. In 2016, during its parliamentary sessions, China announced its space telescope program, which will advance China into capabilities only previously held by programs like the U.S. Hubble space telescope.

A Tianzhou automated resupply spacecraft docks with the future Tiangong 3 space station. The Tiangong 3's robotic arms will make it a good staging point for supporting nearby space telescope satellites.
A Tianzhou automated resupply spacecraft docks with the future Tiangong 3 space station. The Tiangong 3’s robotic arms will make it a good staging point for supporting nearby space telescope satellites.

Zhang Yulin, a Deputy to the National People’s Congress and former Chairman of aerospace contractor CASC, noted that the Chinese space telescope would have a 2+meter diameter lens with a field of view 300 times that of the Hubble Space telescope, while maintaining the same level of image resolution. With such a wide field of view, the space telescope could survey 40 percent of the cosmos in ten years. Zhou Jianping, the head of China’s manned space program, noted that such a wide field-of-view would create a higher fidelity image to search for dark matter, dark energy, and exoplanets. Even more notable than the capabilities, however, may be the plan for where to locate the telescope. Read more

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