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Solar Space Telescope

The Solar Space Telescope (SST) was the largest scientific space project of China to date. In June 1998 plans were announced for the launch of a Solar Space Telescope to be jointly developed by Chinese and German scientists. With a target launch date of 2003, the $60 million telescope would have an aperture of one meter and a resolution ten times better than the SOHO spacecraft. China would pay some 80% of the program's cost, and be responsible for the development of the primary instrument on the two-ton spacecraft.

The bilateral collaborations on solar physics have a long history. Statistically, more than one third of the solar physicists in China mainland have the working experience in Germany for long time. And this number has not been exceeded by the exchanges with other countries. Actually, the collaborations between China and German on solar physics could be dated to a very early time, especially on the solar instruments. In the mid-90s of last century, the Solar Space Telescope (SST) was proposed by the scientists from both sides. The solar physics communities in Germany and China have comparable size, complementary research scopes and share common interests in some important research frontiers.

This project began in 1992 for a 1-metre telescope to be launched in 2005. The telescope will have a polarising spectrograph, accompanied by four side-mounted telescopes to examine the sun in wide-band, X-ray, and hydrogen spectral lines. It will enable a study of solar magnetic field and solar flares as well as the space climate. China would pay about 80 per cent of the programme cost and is responsible for the primary instrument on the spacecraft to be jointly developed by the Chinese Academy of Space Technology and Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The outer space unequalled superiority and the astronautics high-tech enormous development caused the astronomy to enter the spatial astronomy time. Holds the historical opportunity, fully uses Chinese astronautics technology the advantage, fully displays China in the solar magnetic field and in the velocity field research and the equipment development creativity and the leading status, develops a host mirror of one meter, achieves diffraction limit0.1² -0.15² The imagery system, unifies Chinese invention the two-dimensional at the same time spectroscope, and matches by0.5²

The high resolution softXbeam telescope as well as the wide band spectrometer and so on, in the widespread spectrum scope and the continual time evolution, take the upper air between the resolution as the main characteristic, take a magnetism Yuan survey as the breakthrough point, develops the sun transient and the stable state magnetohydrodynamics observation and the research, the realization space conquest with the solar physics research significant breakthrough, enables China the spatial sun survey aspect to achieve the world leading level; and the date place relations research aspect makes the important progress in the satellite environment, provides the powerful method for the space weather forecast; And for development partial astronautics high-tech(high resolution imagery system, high accuracy posture system, correlation tracking device, star is sensitive, mass memory unit and so on)makes the significant contribution.

The space solar telescope is a astronomy satellite, the gross weight 2tons, the solar synchronization circular polar orbit, the axle high 709 kilometers, the three axle is stable, average power1200W, under the data passing on rate 60Mb/s, the size is 5´ 2´ 2 meters 3, this project was in the solution essential technology and the system integration demonstration stage. Solves 8 aspects related more than 30 essential technologies in 2001, and will compose the system and the demonstration, in this foundation, comprehensively will carry on the environment experiment. Strives for about for 2 years to complete the type development, expects to 2004-2005 year launch, the movement life 3 years.

The spatial astronomy laboratory ( Space Astronomical Laboratory ) is the Chinese Academy of Science country astronomical observation center ( National Astronomical Observatories ) one key experimental base. Its main duty is develops China space astronomy technology, the method, the equipment and the instrument.

The Sun, an important research object in astronomy and astrophysics, exerts great influences on the Earth and its environments. It is also a very typical star that can be studied with high spatial resolution. As a natural laboratory, most of its physical phenomena such as huge scale, high temperature and high pressure cannot be duplicated on Earth. The magnetic field in plasma of the Sun plays a very important role in the solar atmosphere structure and solar activities. So, the studying of the magnetic field with high resolution will be the leading topic of the solar astronomical physics at present and in the future. In 20th century, "physical world" in England remarked that the studying of the magnetic field would be the fourth difficulty in physical researching for the 21st century following after the quantum gravitation, fusion control and high temperature super-conduct.

It is not easy to realize high-resolution and very wide spectrum observation of the Sun and its fine structure with ground-based equipments, because the atmosphere on the Earth will absorb the radiation and atmospheric turbulence will blur the solar image. Scientists in National Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) dedicate to develop a Space Solar Telescope (SST) to do solar observation and research outside the earth atmosphere.

SST will carry five scientific observing instruments working over a wide spectrum with 2-dimension imaging and with continuous time evolution. It is anticipated to achieve a breakthrough advance in solar physics through coordinated, wide spectral coverage, highly temporal and spatial resolution observations of transient and steady states in solar hydrodynamic and magneto-hydrodynamic processes. Some new technologies on SST, such as aerospace large optic mirror, correlation tracker, and high- speed telemetry and telecommand, will be very useful for China.

The space-frame of SST provides the mechanical interface between the telescope and instruments, and it is a crucial linker for all the optical, mechanical, and electronic subsystems. Therefore, the structural parts of SST must satisfy sufficient strength, stiffness, and thermal stability requirements of optical and other subsystems under the space environment and in the launching process.

The satellite service system and its ground support equipment are qualified with creativity as well as heritage on the base of reliability. The 1-meter optical telescope will be the most advanced solar observing telescope. Its launcher and service system can use previous satellites such as China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite(CBERS) for reference. Making full use of the domestic Unified S-Band (USB) network and existent ground station, SST satellite and ground support system is designed according to SST requirement and international standard to guarantee the realization of SST science objects. The scheme has been assessed many times by relating departments.

In June 2000, a group combined by Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and The Fifth Academy of China Aerospace appraised and affirmed the feasibility of SST and its ground support system. In 2001 Chinese Aerospace Department approved the project as a pre-research project of the 10th -five- year plan. So the project is promoted to a new developing phase.

SST was advancing successfully and is expected launch in 2008, but as of July 2010, it had been orbited, and several satellites scheduled to be launched in 2010 appeared to be behind schedule as well. By 2009 the success of ground-based 1-m Swedish Solar Telescope and Hinode underscored the importance of the 1-m space telescope. In addition, some key technical problems had been solved.

By 2011 the long awaited Solar Space Telescope was renamed to Deep-space Solar Observatory (DSO) after the planned orbit was changed to the Sun-Earth L1 point. This orbit provides a stable thermal environment for the massive primary mirror, and is largely free ofinterference from Earth, the moon, and the sun, provided the 60-degree sun avoidance angle is observed. (3) DSO: Deep Space Solar Observatory In 2011 the community got a chance to put solar observations into the national deep space program. Then, based on the heritage of SST (Space Solar Observatory), a new mission named Deep Space Solar Observatory (DSO) was proposed. Different from SST, DSO will work at L1 with a set of optimized payloads. Although preparation works have been done during past two years, DSO was still waiting for the green light for the whole plan of national deep space exploration.

NASA in 2010 had examined an 8-meter monolithic aperture ATLAST (ATLAST-8m) for whichNASA MSFC developed a detailed preliminary point design. ATLAST-8m is a potential next generation flagshipUVOIR space observatory (wavelength coverage: 110 nm – 2400 nm). By virtue of its ~15 milli-arcsec (mas) angularresolution at ~500 nm coupled with its ultra high sensitivity, superb stability and low sky background, ATLAST-8m willachieve major breakthroughs in astrophysics by enabling fundamentally new observations. ATLAST-8m has the opticalperformance required to detect the potentially rare occurrence of bio-signatures in the spectra of terrestrial exo-planets,to reveal the underlying physics that drives star formation, and to trace the complex interactions between dark matter,galaxies, and the intergalactic medium.

Based on “The Strategic Report of Long-term Plan of Chinese Space Sciences (2011-2025)”, space solar physics community, together with other branches of space sciences, is studying its development strategy in 2016-2030.

For many decades China had not launched any Chinese solar missions. There are still no solar missions which have been undertaken into the engineering stage. We do not know how long this situation will maintain. But we indeed have seen something changing within the framework of the strategic plan. There are some mission-level projects, which are undertaken in phase-A and part of phase-B (so-called background) stage or in promoting stage. According to the definition in “The Strategic Report of Long-term Plan of Chinese Space Sciences (2011-2025)”, there are 16 programs of space sciences totally. Two belong to solar physics: Solar Microscope Program and Solar Panorama Program. Another program related to solar physics is Solar-Terrestrial Connection Program, which belongs to Space Physics. Four mission-level projects were related to solar observations, despite it belongs to solar physics or space physics.

ASO-S: Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory Aiming at the 25th solar maximum years, the community plans to manufacture and launch a small-sized solar mission named Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory (ASO-S), to realize the zero-breakthrough of Chinese solar satellite. The scientific objectives of ASO-S are focused on solar magnetic field, solar flares, and coronal mass ejections. ASO-S will observe simultaneously solar vector magnetic field, solar flares with high energy imager and coronal mass ejections with coronagraph within a single platform for the first time. The relationship among solar magnetic field, solar flares and coronal mass ejections will be studied extensively. The obtained knowledge from this mission can be also applied to space weather forecast. There are three payloads: Full disk vector Magneto Graph (FMG), Hard X-ray and gamma-ray Imager (HXI) and Lyman-alpha Solar Telescope (LST). It is expected that ASO-S will be launched in 2021 and work in orbit for 4 years. In 2013, ASO-S has finished all the procedure for approval as a background project.

SPORT: Solar Polar Orbit Telescope The Solar Polar Orbit Telescope (SPORT) is intended to be the first mission from a polar orbit around the Sun to measure solar high-latitude magnetism leading to eruptions and the fast solar wind and to image interplanetary propagation of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) in the ecliptic. It was proposed as a radio array in 2004 by the National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and is under a scientific and engineering background study in China (2012-2016). SPORT is expected to have an orbit similar to that of Ulysses, with its perihelion at 0.7 AU from the Sun, aphelion at 5 AU, and inclination angle of about 75 degrees with respect to the ecliptic. Tentative payload aboard SPORT will include an EUV imager (121.6 nm), a magnetograph, a coronagraph, a heliospheric imager, a synthetic aperture radio imager, a solar wind plasma analyzer, a magnetometer, a radio and plasma wave instrument and an energetic particle detector.

DSO: Deep Space Solar Observatory In 2011 the community got a chance to put solar observations into the national deep space program. Then, based on the heritage of SST (Space Solar Observatory), a new mission named Deep Space Solar Observatory (DSO) was proposed. Different from SST, DSO will work at L1 with a set of optimized payloads. Although preparation works have been done during past two years, DSO is still waiting for the green light for the whole plan of national deep space exploration.

Kuafu The Kuafu mission underwent significant progress in 2012. The Chinese Academy of Sciences and European Space Agency collaborated closely to realize the original three-satellite configuration. However, due to financial pressure, the collaboration ended without a clear European commitment to Kuafu B. The Chinese Academy of Sciences pursued an alternate mission scenario with the original Kuafu A redeployed from L1 to L5 point. The work has been completed. Kuafu was awaiting decision from the Chinese Academy of Sciences on follow-on steps.