HKATG deploys Lobster Eye X-ray Explorer through Long March-4B rocket

The Hong Kong Aerospace Technology Group (HKATG) has successfully deployed space exploration satellite into orbit.

The Lobster Eye X-ray Explorer satellite was launched onboard the Long March-4B carrier rocket from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre.

Claimed to be the world’s first space exploration satellite to leverage X-ray technology with lobster-eye optics, the Lobster Eye X-ray Explorer marks the first cooperation between mainland China and Hong Kong in the space exploration realm through a commercial approach.

All participators, including the HKATG, took part in the basic research, engineering technology and applications aspects.

The launch laid the foundation and engineering reserve for the deployment and implementation of the Golden Bauhinia constellation.

HKATG recently entered a strategic partnership with China Great Wall Industry Corporation to jointly develop the system design, satellite design, development, testing, launch and in-orbit delivery, etc., of the Golden Bauhinia.

In a separate development, Nasa selected Barrios Technology for the Human Space Flight Technical Integration Contract (HSFTIC).

As part of the cost-plus-award-fee, incentive-fee contract, Barrios will support multiple human spaceflight programmes at the agency’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston.

The agency is also preparing to send the Astrophysics Stratospheric Telescope for High Spectral Resolution Observations at Submillimeter (ASTHROS) wavelengths into the stratosphere.

The 8.4ft telescope is scheduled to be launched in December 2023 from Antarctica onboard a balloon of the size of a football stadium.

Last month, China launched the last satellite in its BeiDou navigation system from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in Sichuan Province.