1. China's first space mission of the year a success 

The Tiantong 1-03 satellite was launched via a Long March 3B carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in West China's Sichuan province on Jan 20. It is China's first space mission this year. 

Tiantong 1-03 is the third satellite in the Tiantong 1 system, which has been developed by the China Academy of Space Technology, and which consists of space-based assets, ground facilities and user terminals. Tiantong 1's system is the country's first space-based mobile communications system. 

The deployment of Tiantong 1-03 will significantly improve China's capability to maintain its communications systems in emergencies and expand the coverage of the nation's independent mobile communications satellite network to the entire Asia-Pacific region. 

A Long March 3B carrier rocket blasts off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. [Photo/WeChat account: szchtf] 

2. China leads the world in high-speed rail 

A new high-speed railway service that connects Beijing with Harbin, capital of the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, was launched on Jan 22. Combined with two previously opened sections, the Beijing-Harbin High-speed Railway now extends 1,198 kilometers. 

With a top speed of 350 km per hour, the travel time from Beijing to Harbin has been shortened to about five hours, and that of Beijing to Shenyang to two hours and 44 minutes. 

Currently, the length of railway lines in service in China totals 147,500 km and that of high-speed rails is 39,100 km, both ranking first in the world.  

3. China's first solar probe to be launched in 2022 

China's first solar probe, Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory (ASO-S), is scheduled to be launched into space in the first half of 2022, marking the country's first-ever mission to explore the sun. 

The satellite will operate in a sun-synchronous orbit 720 km above Earth to keep a close tab on the sun 24 hours a day. It will observe the solar magnetic field, solar flares, and coronal mass ejections, in an attempt to explore their formation and interrelationship.  

It deploys three payloads, including the Full-disk vector MagnetoGraph (FMG), the Lyman-alpha Solar Telescope (LST), and the Hard X-ray Imager (HXI). 

China's first solar probe is scheduled to be launched in the first half of 2022. [Photo/WeChat account: szchtf] 

4. Latest huge 2D sky map of the universe released 

The Beijing-Arizona Sky Survey (BASS) team of the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) international cooperation project team jointly released the latest, huge, two-dimensional "sky map" of the universe on Jan 14. 

This sky map of the universe covers 20,000 square degrees of sky, and contains 10 trillion digital pixels and two billion celestial objects. 

The latest huge two-dimensional sky map of the universe is released. [Photo/WeChat account: szchtf] 

5. Organ chip system illustrates COVID-19 pathogenic mechanism 

An extracorporeal lung microphysiological system based on organ chip technology has been jointly created by the Zheng Yongtang team of the CAS Kunming Institute of Zoology and the Qin Jianhua team from the CAS Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics. 

The system can simulate lung injuries and immune responses induced by COVID-19 in vitro at organ level, providing a new way to study the pathogenic mechanism of the virus and perform rapid drug evaluations.