Magnetospheric Physics in China:2014—2015

In the past two years, much progress is made in magnetospheric physics by using the data of Double Star Program, Cluster, THEMIS, RBSP, Swarm missions etc., or by computer simulations. This paper briefly reviews these works based on papers selected from the 191 publications from January 2014 to December 2015. The subjects cover various sub-branches of magnetospheric physics, including geomagnetic storm, magnetospheric substorm, magnetic reconnection, solar windmagnetosphere-ionosphere interaction, radiation belt, outer magnetosphere, magnetotail, plasmasphere, geomagnetic field, auroras and currents.     

Research Advances of Solar Corona and Interplanetary Physics in China: 2012–2014

Solar transients and their related interplanetary counterparts have severe effects on the space environments of the Earth. Therefore, the research of solar corona and interplanetary physics has become the focus of study for both solar and space scientists. Considerable progress has been achieved in these aspects by the solar and space physics community of China during 2012–2014, which will be given in this report. The brief report summarizes the research advances of solar corona and interplanetary physics into the following parts: solar wind origin and turbulence, coronal waves and seismology, solar eruptions, solar energetic particle and galactic cosmic ray, magnetic reconnection,Magnetohydrodynamic(MHD) models and their applications, waves and structures in solar wind,propagation of ICMEs/shocks and their arrival time predictions. These research achievements have been achieved by Chinese solar and space scientists independently or via international collaborations.     

Microgravity Material Research in China: 2012–2014

During 2012–2014, the main research activities from microgravity material research were focused on, which include study of microgravity effects on collagen fibrillogenesis and HAP crystallization, microgravity experiments using drop tube, and research of thermoelectric materials for space.This paper summarizes all these activities.     

Space Solar Physics in China:2014—2016

The activities of Chinese space solar physics in 2014—2016 were mainly undertaken within the framework of Strategic Priority Program on Space Science, sponsored by CAS, which include:to accomplish the last version for the mid and long-term (2016—2030) plan of Chinese space solar physics;to subsidy a few of pre-study projects of space solar physics;to implement two intensive study projects, ASO-S and SPORT. This paper summarizes these activities briefly.     

Magnetospheric physics in China: 2008—2010

In the past two years, most of the works on magnetospheric physics were made by using the data of Double Star Program and Cluster missions. However some works were still conducted by computer simulation or using the data from other space missions and ground geomagnetic observations. This paper briefly review these previous works based on papers selected from the 28 publications from April 2008 to April 2010. The subjects covered various sub-branches of magnetospheric physics, including geomagnetic storm, magnetospheric substorm and etc.     

Some Investigations on the Ionosphere during 2012–2014 in China

In this national biannual report, we will outline some recent progresses in ionospheric studies conducted by Chinese scientists since 2012. The mentioned aspects include: the solar activity control of the ionosphere; couplings between the ionosphere, lower atmosphere and plasmasphere;ionospheric climatology and disturbances; ionospheric irregularities and scintillation; models, data assimilation and simulations; unusual phenomena of the ionosphere; possible seismic signatures presented in ionospheric observations, and some methodology progresses. These progresses will enhance our ability to observe the ionosphere, provide more reasonable understanding about the states of the ionosphere and underlying fundamental processes, and stimulate ionospheric modeling, forecasting and related applications.     

Interplanetary Physics Research in China:2006—2008

This brief report summarized the latest advances of the interplanetary physics research in China during the period of 2006—2007,made independently by Chinese space physicists and through international collaboration.The report covers all aspects of the interplanetary physics,including theoretical studies,numerical simulation and data analysis.     

Advances in the Researches of the Middle and Upper Atmosphere in China in 2012–2014

In this report we summarize the research results by Chinese scientists in 2012–2014. The focuses are placed on the researches of the middle and upper atmosphere, specifically the researches related to ground-based observation capability development, dynamical processes, the property of circulation and chemistry-climate coupling of the middle atmospheric layers.     

China’s Space Astronomy and Solar Physics in 2011-2012

In the first part of this paper, we describe briefly the mid and long-term plan of Chinese space astronomy, its preliminary study program, the current status of satellite missions undertaken, and the current status of astronomy experiments in China’s manned space flight program. In the second part, the recent research progress made in the fields of solar physics is summarized briefly, including solar vector magnetic field, solar flares, CME and filaments, solar radio and nonthermal processes, EUV waves, MHD waves and coronal waves, solar model and helioseismology, solar wind and behavior of solar cycle.     

Interplanetary Physics Research in China： 2006-2008

This brief report summarized the latest advances of the interplanetary physics research in China during the period of 2006-2007,made independently by Chinese space physicists and through international collaboration.The report covers all aspects of the interplanetary physics,including theoretical studies,numerical simulation and data analysis.     

Progress of Double Star Program 2006—2008

This paper presents the status of two satellites of Double Star Program,and a part of scientific results based on the data of Double Star Program obtained during the period of 2006-2008.Other scientific results in the magnetospheric physics research can be found in Multi scale physical process in the magnetosphere of this issue.     

Progress of Double Star Program

The Double Star Programme (DSP) is the first joint space mission between China and ESA. The mission, which is made of two spacecraft, is designed to investigate the magnetospheric global processes and their response to the interplanetary disturbances in conjunction with the Cluster mission. The first spacecraft, TC-1 (Tan Ce means "Explorer"), was launched on 30 December 2003, and the second one, TC-2, on 25 July 2004 on board two Chinese Long March 2C. Due to the importance of and success of DSP, both CNSA and ESA approved the extension of DSP. This paper presents DSP mission and some important scientific results made based on the data of DSP.     

An explanation of the observation of pulsing hiss at low latitude

In this paper we report pulsing hiss emissions observed at the low latitude station, Jammu (geomag. lat. 22°26′N, L = 1.17) in which intensity decreases with the increase in frequency. The entire dynamic spectra contain somewhat irregular structure. To explain these we propose that the hiss emissions are generated through Doppler-shifted cyclotron interactions near the equator and propagate to the earth in the whistler-mode. Further, ULF waves present in the generation region modulate the intensity of the emission resulting in the pulsing nature. The growth rates are computed and discussed in the light of recent works.     

A triangle voting algorithm based on double feature constraints for star sensors

A novel autonomous star identification algorithm is presented in this study. In the proposed algorithm, each sensor star constructs multi-triangle with its bright neighbor stars and obtains its candidates by triangle voting process, in which the triangle is considered as the basic voting element. In order to accelerate the speed of this algorithm and reduce the required memory for star database, feature extraction is carried out to reduce the dimension of triangles and each triangle is described by its base and height. During the identification period, the voting scheme based on double feature constraints is proposed to implement triangle voting. This scheme guarantees that only the catalog star satisfying two features can vote for the sensor star, which improves the robustness towards false stars. The simulation and real star image test demonstrate that compared with the other two algorithms, the proposed algorithm is more robust towards position noise, magnitude noise and false stars.