China's Main Science, Technology Developments
The CentiSpace-1-S3/S4 test satellites were launched by a Kuaizhou-1A carrier rocket at 10:24 a.m. (Beijing Time) on Tuesday and they have entered the planned orbit successfully.
In the meantime, China launched a Long March-2D carrier rocket on Tuesday to place a remote sensing satellite group in space.
The fifth batch of the Yaogan-35 family, the satellites were lifted at 12:19 p.m. (Beijing Time) from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the Southwestern province of Sichuan and entered the preset orbit.
In a press conference on Monday, it was announced that based on the latest data there were 1,525 science and technology museums in China in 2020, up more than 50 percent from 2012.
China has been accelerating the construction of venues to popularize science since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, with its financial investment in science popularization up 8.16 percent annually.
According to Li Meng, vice minister of science and technology, China will further promote science popularization by highlighting the roles of cyberspace and social funds.
The country will strengthen the coordination of over 40 government agencies to jointly implement a newly issued official document on the work of science and technology popularization in the new era, said Li
Cyberspace has become a key area of science popularization work, said Li, adding that the network-based science popularization teams should receive support and encouragement to improve their scientific nature and services.
At present, more than 80 percent of science information is spread via network channels, such as websites, Weibo and WeChat.
Li also said the country will encourage and guide more social funds to invest in science popularization work in various ways, such as building sci-tech museums, establishing related foundations, or setting up related forums with international influence.
So far, government funds have been a major source of finance for China's science popularization work. In 2020, the country's total expenditure on science popularization was 17 billion yuan (about 2.45 billion US dollars), of which 80 percent was from government allocation.
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