Dear colleagues,

On behalf of the board of NSSC, please allow me to extend my New Year’s greetings and best wishes to NSSC staff and oversea partners.

The year 2013 has been a fruitful year. 4 satellite missions of the CAS Strategic Priority Program (SPP) on space science have entered their engineering phase; 4 projects were approved for background studies. At the same time, preparation for a joint mission with European Space Agency (ESA) has been initialized. NSSC is happy to host a new research institute - International Space Science Institute in Beijing (ISSI-BJ) and to set up a new joint research center with INPE in Brazil - South America Space Weather Research Center of CAS. 

NSSC played a key role in the Chang’E 3 mission, responsible for its scientific payload system. 8 instruments for scientific exploration and 2 payloads for data management have all been working well during the first lunar day after landing. The Meridian Project starts its first operational year. The science outputs are encouraging with multi-layers observations cross the longitude and also latitude. It will for sure give vitality to the International Space Weather Meridian Circle Program (ISWMCP).

NSSC also played a crucial role in the automatic rendezvous and docking of Tiangong-1 and Shenzhou 10 spacecraft. Space weather forecast service provided by NSSC guaranteed an overall success of the mission. And the remote sensor and detector developed by NSSC for FengYun (literally wind and cloud), Haiyang (literally Ocean), remote sensing as well as other applied satellites are functioning very well. The development of millimeter wave interferometric imaging radiometer for geo-stationary weather satellite are also going well with new fund from National 863 program and ESA as a new partner.  Our sounding rocket program has also great success in 2013. Two experiments were carried out and deployment of Barium powder was observed to reflect the movement of the ionosphere.

The past year of 2013 also witnessed a noticeable breakthrough in basic research and advanced technology pre-study. The research paper analyzing the three-dimensional (3D) numerical simulation of the Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) was published as the cover page article on Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) and was chosen as one of American Geophysical Union (AGU)’s “Research Spotlights”. Important research results focusing on the solar storm Sun-to-Earth propagation, the interactions of solar storm and earth’s magnetic field have also aroused global attention.

Looking to the new year of 2014, I should like to express my gratitude to all the staff members and your families for the contribution you’ve made in 2013 to the cause of space science. Let’s go hand in hand in 2014 and strive for a better future.

May you have a happy New Year and happy family!

Director General    WU Ji

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