China-Space Telescope/Abilities

Shotlist

FILE: Changchun City, Jilin Province, northeast China – Date Unknown (Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Phycics – No access Chinese mainland)
1. Animation of space telescope Xuntian fin orbit

Changchun City, Jilin Province, northeast China – July 7, 2022 (CCTV – No access Chinese mainland)
2. SOUNDBITE (Chinese) Xu Shuyan, Chief Designer of Xuntian Space Telescope and researcher from the National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (starting with shot 1/partially overlaid with shot 3):
“The feature of Xuntian space telescope is that it can observe in a deeper, wider and more accurate view. On the basis of the same depth and precision, its scope is above 300 times than the Hubble Space Telescope. For example, under the same circumstances, the Hubble Space Telescope can observe one star while our Xuntian Space Telescope can observe 300.”

++SHOTS OVERLAYING SOUNDBITE++
FILE: Changchun City, Jilin Province, northeast China – Date Unknown (Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Phycics – No access Chinese mainland)
3. Photos of Xuntian Space Telescope
++SHOTS OVERLAYING SOUNDBITE++

Changchun City, Jilin Province, northeast China – July 7, 2022 (CCTV – No access Chinese mainland)
4. Various of researchers talking, computers screen showing space telescope

FILE: Changchun City, Jilin Province, northeast China – Date Unknown (Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Phycics – No access Chinese mainland)
5. Animation of space telescope Xuntian in orbit
6. Animation of cosmos

Storyline

China’s flagship space telescope, the Xuntian or “survey of the heavens”, which is slated to be launched at the end of 2023, will give astronomers a deeper, wider and more accurate view of the universe than the Hubble Space Telescope, according to the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics.

The Xuntian Space Telescope will operate about 400 kilometres above the earth in ‘co-orbit with China’s Tiangong Space Station, allowing it to dock occasionally with the space station for maintenance.

“The feature of Xuntian space telescope is that it can observe in a deeper, wider and more accurate view. On the basis of the same depth and precision, its scope is above 300 times than the Hubble Space Telescope. For example, under the same circumstances, the Hubble Space Telescope can observe one star while our Xuntian Space Telescope can observe 300,” said Xu Shuyan, chief designer of Xuntian and a researcher from the National Astronomical Observatories at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Xu said the Xuntian telescope consists of 30 detectors, each of which is bigger than the Hubble’s single detector.

Eighteen of the detectors are equipped with filters to capture colorful images of the cosmos in different light ranges while the other 12 detectors are used for seamless spectral observation, which can obtain spectral information from several thousand stars per exposure.

Xuntian will be the largest pixel-scale astronomical camera in space once operational.