[CMSE News] At 11:00 on October 30, 2009, the Shenzhou VII concomitant satellite developed by Shanghai Micro-satellite Engineering Center attached to the Chinese Academy of Sciences under the direction of the Space Application System of the China Manned Space Engineering, entered into the atmospheric envelope and fell naturally after normally operating in the orbit for 400 days and flying around the Earth for 6,350 circles. Thus, the Shenzhou VII concomitant satellite flight test was smoothly completed.

The Shenzhou VII concomitant satellite is a micro satellite, the weight of its main body is about 40kg, and it has the ability to take picture and video of the spaceship, the ability to track the spaceship and transmit the data, and the ability of navigation.

The concomitant satellite flight test is the main task undertaken by the Space Application System in the Shenzhou VII flight task. At 21:10 on September 25, 2008, the concomitant satellite was launched into the orbit together with the Shenzhou VII spaceship. At 19:24 on September 27, the concomitant satellite was released successfully in the orbit, and then took picture and video of the spaceship at particular direction. Thereafter, the concomitant satellite transmitted the video and picture in good solution to the Earth; in the following ten days, the satellite was adjusted for 7 times, so as to make the satellite to fly around the spaceship. On October 8, it came the long-term management phase for the satellite, and till the falling day, all functional modules of the satellite worked normally, the satellite platform worked normally, the energy balance was remained throughout the satellite, and the posture was stable. When flying in the orbit, the concomitant satellite carried out a lot of tests, including camera-based observation, accompanying flight, posture adjustment and software uploading. Before the task was completed, the low-orbit earth observation test, backup computer switchover test and propelling agent injection test were carried out as planned, so as to accumulate a lot of data and lay a firm technical foundation for subsequent tests for new technologies.

Through this task, China realized the secondary release of micro-satellite from spacecraft in orbit for the first time and carried out the spaceship-orbiting technical test for the first time, the domestically-manufactured triple-junction GaAs high-performance solar cell and li-ion battery were successfully applied in the engineering for the first time, and a series of new technologies were applied and tested, which will promote the development of China’s micro-satellite technologies.