China's efforts to enhance intellectual property (IP) protection have positioned it as a major player in the field, creating new opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation between China and other countries, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told a press conference on Thursday.
The remarks came after the China National Intellectual Property Administration announced that as of the end of 2023, the Chinese mainland's invention patent inventory had reached a staggering 4.015 million, solidifying its status as an IP powerhouse.
In recent years, China has continuously improved its international IP cooperation mechanisms and established IP cooperation relationships with more than 80 countries, regions and international organizations.
Wang said that China is committed to creating a market-oriented, rule-of-law and internationalized business environment. This commitment has resulted in a steady increase in foreign companies' satisfaction with China's efforts on IP protection.
As a result, an increasing number of foreign enterprises are choosing to invest and operate in China, thereby sharing in the country's development dividends and vast market opportunities.
China ranked 12th on the Global Innovation Index 2023 of the World Intellectual Property Organization, making it the highest-ranking middle-income economy, reflecting the international community's high regard for China's innovation capabilities.
China's efforts to enhance its technological innovation capacity have injected new impetus into global green and sustainable development, promoting the rapid development of new industries such as electric vehicles, lithium batteries and solar cells, Wang said.
The top 10 makers of Chinese new-energy vehicles hold more than 100,000 valid patents, with a rapidly growing trend. Chinese companies also rank top globally in terms of patent applications for solid-state batteries and solar cells.
As a result, China's achievements in IP development have become a distinct symbol of its high-quality development and distinguishing mark of Chinese modernization. It is believed that China will make greater contributions to global innovation and development, Wang said.
As China prepares to celebrate the upcoming Chinese New Year - Year of the Dragon according to Chinese zodiac - in February 2024, global luxury brands in various industries including handbags, clothing, chocolate and watches have raced to introduce a wide range of limited-edition dragon-themed items to woo Chinese consumers during the Spring Festival, one of the most important holidays in the country.
Zodiac elements are an important part of traditional Chinese culture, and Chinese dragon carries the auspicious meaning of good fortune, prosperity and wisdom in Chinese culture. Most of the limited-edition items highlight the image of the dragon, one of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals, while some others feature Chinese elements like red and gold color themes.
Recently, dragon-themed outdoor jackets launched by a Canadian brand became an online sensation in China, as a men's jacket, priced at 8,200 yuan ($1,153), quickly sold out, leaving scalpers to reportedly resell the popular item at around 12,000 yuan - a microcosm of Chinese's enthusiasm for dragon-themed items.
Multiple international cosmetic brands have also launched "dragon editions" of various products covering a wide range of beauty products from skincare, makeup to perfume, according to media reports.
"Global luxury brands' deep exploration of the Chinese traditional culture to try to integrate into the local market reflects the growing influence of Chinese culture and the country's strong spending power," Zhang Yi, CEO of iiMedia Research Institute, told the Global Times on Sunday.
In the wake of COVID-19, China's consumer spending has maintained a stable recovery. The country is an increasingly important market for global brands, especially luxury brands, thanks to an expanding middle-class group and continuous consumption upgrade.
According to a report that global management consulting firm Bain & Company sent to the Global Times on Thursday, China's luxury market is expected to grow in the mid-single digit in 2024 following a 12 percent year-on-year increase in 2023, while Chinese luxury consumption is expected to reach 35-40 percent of the world's total by 2030.
Consumption boom
"China is always one of the most important markets of the group," Jenny Gu, Richemont China CEO, told the Global Times recently. The company attended China International Import Expo held in Shanghai for four years in a row in 2023 in order to strengthen the relations between its sub-brands with Chinese consumers and partners, Gu said.
Global luxury brands have increased their focus on China, as the market has become an important driver of global growth in the segment.
Official data showed that duty-free sales in South China's Hainan Province grew by about 25 percent year-on-year to reach 43.76 billion yuan in 2023, thanks to a recovery in domestic travel and stimulus measures implemented by local governments.
"I have conducted surveys in many regions across China since March 2023, during which I strongly felt the robust recovery of economic and social activities nationwide. Chinese consumers' confidence wasn't dampened as badly as many have thought," Cao Heping, an economist at Peking University, told the Global Times on Sunday.
The rebound in tourism has also uplifted consumer spending in both domestic and international markets, Cao said. He said a population exceeding 1.4 billion and a middle-income group surpassing 400 million will continue to power the country's consumption and overall economic growth, attracting brands and businesses from all over the world.
The three-day New Year holidays (from December 30, 2023 to January 1, 2024) produced a travel boom in China's tourism market, signaling a good start for China's consumption recovery efforts in 2024. Industry analysts forecast that the upcoming eight-day Spring Festival holidays, which will start on February 10, are expected to be the most vibrant and prosperous of its kind in recent years.
The tone-setting Central Economic Work Conference held in Beijing in December 2023 pointed out that the Chinese central government will focus on expanding demand in 2024, shifting consumption from post-epidemic recovery to sustained expansion.
The key meeting stressed the need to foster new growth areas such as consumption of smart home appliances, entertainment and tourism, sports events and trendy domestic brands, Zhang said, noting that global companies that could meet the country's consumption upgrade will have bright prospects in the vast market.
Upswing expected
Looking ahead to 2024, many domestic and overseas analysts are positive about China's economic prospects, as targeted policy underscored the resolve and capability of Chinese authorities to ensure a stable economic recovery.
Cao forecast that China's GDP is expected to reach above 5 percent in 2024, saying that consumption will continue to be the most important driving force for the Chinese economy.
Extending the strong momentum during the Spring Festival, the country's consumption sector - be it in urban cities or rural villages, online and offline, in green spending or the silver economy - will continue to rebound, with retail sales in 2024 expected to exceed that recorded in 2023 to reach 50 trillion yuan, Wei Jianguo, former Chinese vice minister of commerce and executive deputy director of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, told the Global Times on Friday.
Pan Gongsheng, governor of the People's Bank of China, said at a press conference on Wednesday that China will cut the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) by 50 basis points from February 5, which is expected to inject 1 trillion yuan ($141 billion) in long-term liquidity to bolster the economy.
On Friday, the Ministry of Commerce declared 2024 the "Year of Promoting Consumption" and stressed the need to strengthen economic momentum. The ministry said it would continue to relax restrictions on foreign investment and improve the business environment in order to attract more investment.
"The potential growth [of the Chinese economy] should still be above 5 percent in 2024. We will see that the drag by property sector will likely diminish in 2024," Xing Zhaopeng, senior China strategist with ANZ Research, told the Global Times in a recent written interview.
UBS economists led by Wang Tao wrote in a note sent to the Global Times in December 2023 that China's consumption and services sector will extend the post-epidemic recovery trend in 2024, with the gradual release of excess savings making a significant contribution in this regard.
China's financial sector remains stable, with risks well under control, and the government has confidence, conditions and capability to maintain healthy and steady development of the country's financial sector, Li Yunze, head of the National Financial Regulatory Administration (NFRA), said at the Asian Financial Forum which kicked off in Hong Kong on Wednesday.
With deepening financial supply-side structural reform as its main task, the NFRA will guide financial institutions to focus on their main business, with renewed emphasis on fin-tech innovation, green finance, inclusive finance, pension finance, and digital finance in order to strengthen their functions in serving the real economy, Li said.
Although the Chinese mainland's economic development encountered some challenges and difficulties, there are still far more favorable conditions. The economy's sound growth is secured for the long term, and the continuous structural improvement and high-quality development will remain unchanged thanks to the country's solid financial fundamentals, strong vitality and sufficient policy room, the official said.
Li stressed that the Chinese mainland will steadily expand institutional opening-up across the financial sector and will explore more measures to support foreign institutions to set up businesses and expand operations in the Chinese mainland market.
China will step up efforts to protect the legitimate rights and interests of foreign enterprises and to provide a better business environment, according to Li.
As an international financial hub, Hong Kong has advantages in its open and free economy, mature financial market, international legal environment and its attraction to global talent. The NFRA will seek to strengthen supervision cooperation with Hong Kong and boost higher-level opening up to the Hong Kong and Macao under the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement framework and give full play to Hong Kong's unique advantages under the One Country, Two Systems principle and will continue to strengthen its standing as an international financial center, Li said.
The pre-Spring Festival ticket sales peak has arrived for China's railway system, with over 61 million tickets sold since January 12, a year-on-year increase of 159 percent, China State Railway Group Co (China Railway) announced on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, China Railway sold 18.937 million tickets nationwide, and the sales rush is expected to continue until Friday.
Spring Festival, also known as Chinese New Year, is a time of high transportation demand in China as people return home for family reunions. The travel period runs for 40 days starting from Friday.
Since January 12, 190 million railway tickets have been sold in China ahead of the travel rush. Notably, single-day ticket sales reached a record high on China's 12306 online ticketing platform, hitting 18.937 million, with a record-high number of single-day visits of 62.92 billion.
China Railway noted that this year's busiest days will be around February 3 to 6, as people get back to their families ahead of the holiday. Tickets for trains leaving major cities like Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Beijing during these peak days are already in high demand and are selling out fast.
To handle the influx of travelers, China's railway system is ramping up operations, with plans to run around 12,700 trains per day until February 10, increasing slightly to 12,800 after that. While this adds more seats than in previous years, some routes are still expected to be packed.
Meanwhile, other modes of transportation are also gearing up for the holiday rush. Air China, for example, announced on Tuesday that it had scheduled over 67,000 flights during this period, up 32 percent compared to 2019, with an average of 1,693 flights per day.
China is expected to witness 9 billion passenger trips during the annual Spring Festival travel rush, the Ministry of Transport said last week. Among them, China Railway is expected to handle 480 million passenger trips, and the Civil Aviation Administration of China is expected to handle 80 million passenger trips during the 40-day travel rush. The number of self-driving trips is expected to reach 7.2 billion, a historic high.
Choosing to operate in the Chinese market is not a risk, but an opportunity, said China's Foreign Ministry. China will only open its door wider to the outside world, a ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday, in response to the ongoing World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting 2024, where some voices emerged urging for "de-risking" in economic and trade activities, while other voices calling for cooperation.
China welcomes foreign companies to continue to invest in China, and will continue to build a market-oriented, law-based and internationalized business environment, said Mao Ning, the ministry spokesperson during a media briefing.
As Chinese Premier Li Qiang pointed out at the opening ceremony of the WEF 2024, countries have very close economic linkages in today's world, which means their macroeconomic policies have more notable spillover effects, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
"In the face of global crises, fragmented and separate responses will only leave the world economy more fragile," Li said on Tuesday.
Mao noted that China believes that only by fully respecting the laws of the international division of labor, unswervingly advancing liberalization and facilitation in trade and investment, tightening cooperation and making the pie of mutual benefit bigger, can the global economy truly serve the common interests of all parties.
"Countries around the world should step up dialogue and communication, take more coordinated and effective measures, firmly uphold the multilateral trading system, jointly improve global economic governance, and foster new drivers of global growth," Mao said.
As the second largest economy in the world, China's contribution to global economic growth has stayed at around 30 percent during recent years. China remains an important engine of global development, Mao said.
She noted that China is comprehensively advancing the Chinese-style modernization with high-quality development, which will continue to provide a strong driving force for global economic growth.
"China has a huge market and is in the stage of rapid release of market demand. In the context of insufficient global demand, the market is the scarcest resource. With its vast market room and ever-expanding depth, China is bound to play an important role in boosting global growth. China will unswervingly open up to the outside world to share its opportunities and achieve common development with other countries," Mao said.
According to the latest data released on Wednesday, China's consumption market continued to expand in 2023. Total retail sales of consumer goods stood at 47.1 trillion yuan ($6.6 trillion), up 7.2 percent year-on-year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported.
The per capita consumption expenditure rose to 26,796 yuan, up 9.0 percent year-on-year. The national economy expanded by 5.2 percent from 2022, according to NBS.
As the year 2024 has just begun, how the world will develop this year and in the near future has captured the attention of people around the globe. At the "International Relations Forecast - Re-exploring the Inertia of History" conference held on Saturday in Beijing, organized by the Institute of International Relations at Tsinghua University, over 10 international relations experts shared their views on the prediction of future international relations between China, the US and other major countries and regions. This is the excerpt of the opinions of four scholars.
Yan Xuetong, dean of the Institute of International Relations at Tsinghua University:
Future forecasts of international relations should particularly consider the increasing trend of populism, especially in Western countries that proclaim liberalism. Over the past decade, the US has led the way in undermining liberalism, engaging in economic "decoupling," and disrupting the international norms established after the Cold War. Populism will have a mainstream impact on the foreign policies of major countries, with some European nations already beginning to follow this trend.
With the mainstream dominance of populism, the influence of constructivism and liberalism on international behavior is expected to decline significantly. Analyzing from a realist perspective, there will be an increasing trend of international cooperation turning into confrontation. It will become increasingly challenging for the world economy to develop positively, and the cooperation between China and the US in trade and economics may not see a continuous upward trend.
Furthermore, the current competition is shifting toward the area of technology. In future strategic competitions, not only between China and the US but also between China and Japan, China and Europe, and the US and Europe, the core focus will be on technology rather than ideology. Subsequently, national competition strategies will undergo changes, and in our predictions for the next 10 years, we must pay more attention to the impact of advancements in digital technology.
Diao Daming, professor at the School of International Studies at Renmin University of China:
I believe that, regardless of the results of the 2024 US presidential election, the US will not change its strategic position in competition with China, and the strategic game between China and the US will persist.
The US is expected to have mediocre economic performance in the next 10 years, accompanied by escalating domestic contradictions. By the 2040s, the demographic structure of the US will undergo a significant transformation into a state without a majority ethnic group, leading to the complete abandonment of the national creed of uniting the nation. This will usher in a prolonged adjustment phase.
Additionally, China's total economic output is projected to surpass that of the US before 2050, and the two countries will enter an intersecting phase in terms of data significance. After 2028, it is anticipated that China and the US will eventually enter a stage of stalemate, where cooperation and competition become the norm. The world will not witness a bipolar state. Instead, different power structures will emerge in different fields and on different issues.
Sun Chenghao, fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University:
If the Republican Party is in power, the US will adjust the focus of its competition with China. While emphasizing domestic demand, it will intensify the portrayal of the so-called China threat, combining internal difficulties in the US with competition against China.
The Republicans may extend their reach into issues such as education, crime and technology, and the economic momentum toward "de-risk" may shift back toward "decoupling."
Second, the Republicans will differentiate themselves by adopting a tough stance. They may add new points of risk game against China, and extreme policy options against China could be used to appease right-wing conservatives internally.
Third, the continuity of communication channels between China and the US will face uncertainties. Cooperation between China and the US may find it difficult to gain more impetus at the federal level, and the positive forces of communication may sink more to the local and civilian levels.
She Gangzheng, associate professor in the Department of International Relations at Tsinghua University:
I personally believe that the behaviors of smaller countries, including those in the Middle East, will be significantly influenced by the competition among major powers. However, in the context of the technological competition in this digital age, the actions of these smaller countries will, in turn, serve as a strategic hedge, influencing and constraining major powers.
In the future, even if there is a considerable power disparity between countries, it may not necessarily translate into a corresponding disparity in terms of power. The mainstream viewpoint currently suggests that as the pressure from the competition between China and the US intensifies, the pressure on smaller countries to take sides will also increase, and their room for choice will diminish. However, I believe this follows a cold war logic and not the logic of the digital age. In the future, the space for these smaller countries to take sides may remain unchanged or even expand.
Continuing a tradition that has lasted for 34 years, China's foreign minister has once again chosen Africa as the first foreign visit destination for the new year, and this time the visit will cover two countries in North Africa - Egypt and Tunisia - and two in West Africa - Togo, and Cote d'Ivoire - per the announcement of the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Thursday.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's first overseas trip in 2024 will take place between January 13 to 18 at the invitation of the four African countries, Mao Ning, the spokesperson, said on Thursday.
After his visit to Africa, Wang will visit Brazil and Jamaica from January 18 to 22, Mao said.
Experts said this year's visit to the four countries highlighted China's heightened attention to the security situation in North Africa against the background of a potential spillover of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as China's willingness to cooperate with African countries despite its level of development.
Mao noted that Wang's visit has carried on a fine tradition that has been kept for the past 34 years. The trip aims to promote the implementation of the outcomes of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Leaders' Dialogue, and coordinate with African countries on a new session of FOCAC to be held this year.
At last year's FOCAC, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed three new cooperation initiatives to support Africa's industrialization, agricultural modernization, and talent development, which received an enthusiastic response from his African counterparts, Mao said.
The tradition of the Chinese Foreign Minister's annual first trip to Africa has highlighted China's emphasis on consolidating friendship with Africa. The relationship sets an example of what can truly be called "the establishment of a community with a shared future," Song Wei, a professor from the School of International Relations at Beijing Foreign Studies University, told the Global Times on Thursday.
For the North Africa leg, the visit to Egypt highlights China's welcoming gesture to its officially joining the BRICS family. BRICS inducted five new countries in January and they are Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Iran, and Ethiopia.
Choosing to visit North Africa also reflects China's heightened concern over the security situation in the Middle East and the Red Sea, Song said.
As tensions in the region continue to grow, it has threatened the safe passage of an important lifeline for the international economy, and risks a conflict spillover. "The current situation is extremely dangerous from both a political and economic perspective," Song said. "At such a point, Wang's arrival brings the hope of coordinating relations among regional powers, trying to resolve conflicts and restore stability to the world economy and politics."
For West Africa, there were several instances of turmoil and conflicts last year, including military coups. And compared to other regions in Africa, West Africa faces more severe development challenges, so Wang's visit to this region highlighted China's emphasis on security and stability in the continent, experts said.
Cote d'Ivoire has relatively higher development levels in the continent, while Togo ranks as among one of the poorest countries in Africa, reflecting China's overall focus on Africa's development, Song noted.
Wang Youming, director of the Institute of Developing Countries at the China Institute of International Studies in Beijing, said China-Latin America relations have steadily progressed in the past few years, with a significant increase in trade volume, thanks to the structural advantage of a mutually beneficial economic complementarity.
Despite recent political changes in Latin America, with at least five general elections coming up this year including in Mexico and Uruguay, there will be little impact on China-Latin America relations whichever ruling party wins, whether left-wing or right-wing, Wang Youming told the Global Times on Thursday. This is because as an important trading partner, China plays a crucial role in helping them overcome economic challenges.
Zika virus may not be the black sheep of the family. Infections with either of two related viruses also cause fetal defects in mice, researchers find.
Some scientists have speculated that Zika’s capacity to harm a fetus might be unique among its kind, perhaps due to a recent change in the virus’s genetic material (SN: 10/28/17, p. 9). Others have argued that perhaps this dangerous ability was always there. It just wasn’t until the 2015–2016 epidemic in the Western Hemisphere that enough pregnant women were affected for public health researchers to identify the association with fetal defects (SN: 12/24/16, p. 19). But new work suggests this capacity is not Zika’s alone. Pregnant mice infected with West Nile or Powassan virus — both flaviviruses, like Zika — also showed fetal harm. Over 40 percent of these infected fetuses died. But among pregnant mice infected with one of two other mosquito-borne viruses unrelated to Zika, all of the fetuses survived, scientists report online January 31 in Science Translational Medicine.
The research underscores that “many viruses, including some similar to Zika, can infect the placenta and the cells of the baby,” says George Saade, an obstetrician-gynecologist and cell biologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. “This list keeps growing and highlights the risks from viruses that we are not very familiar with.”
Like Zika, West Nile virus and Powassan virus are neurotropic, meaning these pathogens target nerve cells. Both viruses can cause inflammation of the brain or of the membranes that surround the brain. West Nile is transmitted to humans by mosquitoes that have bitten infected birds. From 1999 to 2016, there were more than 46,000 cases reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Powassan, spread by ticks who have fed on infected rodents, is less widespread; only 98 cases were reported from 2007 to 2016, mostly in the Northeast and Great Lakes area.
Jonathan Miner, a virologist at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and his colleagues conducted some of the initial work in mice that demonstrated that Zika could harm fetuses (SN: 6/11/16, p. 15). The new study tests the effects of four other viruses: the two flaviviruses and two alphaviruses, chikungunya and Mayaro, which also have led to outbreaks in Zika-affected areas. The researchers infected 14 mice early in their pregnancies with one of the four viruses. By late pregnancy, 12 out of 30 fetuses from West Nile–infected mice had died, and half of the 16 fetuses from Powassan-infected mice had died. All of the fetuses from mice infected with chikungunya and Mayaro virus survived. West Nile virus and Powassan virus also replicated, or multiplied, more efficiently than the alphaviruses in lab samples of human placental tissue.
Zika, West Nile and Powassan share similarities in their genetic information, Miner says. “So there may be certain features of those virus genes and proteins in that particular family that confers this ability to infect certain cell types.” But scientists don’t understand fully what those features are yet, he says.
While this is the first study comparing the effects in mice of these mosquito-transmitted and tick-transmitted viruses in parallel, Miner says, past studies have raised the possibility of fetal infections with other flaviviruses besides Zika. A 2006 study of 77 pregnant women infected with West Nile virus reported that two had infants with microcephaly, the birth defect lately associated with Zika that results in unusually small and damaged brains.
In general, examining the potential effects of other flaviviruses on pregnant women and their developing fetuses is difficult, because outbreaks have been sporadic and less widespread than with Zika. It’s possible that cases in humans “could go largely unnoticed if we don’t look for them,” Miner says.
A new blood test might reveal whether someone is at risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease.
The test measures blood plasma levels of a sticky protein called amyloid-beta. This protein can start building up in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients decades before there’s any outward signs of the disease. Typically, it takes a brain scan or spinal tap to discover these A-beta clumps, or plaques, in the brain. But evidence is growing that A-beta levels in the blood can be used to predict whether or not a person has these brain plaques, researchers report online January 31 in Nature. These new results mirror those of a smaller 2017 study by a different team of scientists. “It’s a fantastic confirmation of the findings,” says Randall Bateman, an Alzheimer’s researcher at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, who led the earlier study. “What this tells us is that we can move forward with this [test] approach with fairly high confidence that this is going to pan out.”
There’s currently no treatment for Alzheimer’s that can slow or stop the disease’s progression, so catching it early can’t currently improve a patient’s outcome. But a blood test could help researchers more easily identify people who might be good candidates for clinical trials of early interventions, says Steven Kiddle, a biostatistician at the University of Cambridge, who wasn’t part of either study.
Creating such a test has been challenging: Relatively little A-beta floats in the bloodstream compared with how much accumulates in the brain. And many past studies haven’t found a consistent correlation between the two.
In the new study, researchers used mass spectrometry, a more sensitive measuring technique than used in most previous tests, which allowed the detection of smaller amounts of the protein. And instead of looking at the total level of the protein in the blood, the team calculated the ratios between different types of A-beta, says coauthor Katsuhiko Yanagisawa, a gerontologist at the National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology in Obu, Japan. He and his colleagues analyzed brain scans and blood samples from a group of 121 Japanese patients and a group of 252 Australian patients. Some participants had Alzheimer’s, some didn’t, and some had mild cognitive impairments that weren’t related to Alzheimer’s.
Using the ratios, the researchers found that they could discriminate between people who had A-beta plaques in the brain and those who didn’t. A composite biomarker score, created by combining two different ratios, predicted the presence or absence of A-beta plaques in the brain with about 90 percent accuracy in both groups of patients, the researchers found.
The new results are promising, Kiddle says, but the test still needs more refining before it can be used in the clinic. Another wild card: the cost. It’s still not clear whether the blood test will be more affordable than a brain scan or a spinal tap.
The 28-year-old space telescope, in orbit around the Earth, put itself to sleep on October 5 because of an undiagnosed problem with one of its steering wheels. But once more, astronomers are optimistic about Hubble’s chances of recovery. After all, it’s just the latest nail-biting moment in the history of a telescope that has defied all life-expectancy predictions.
There is one major difference this time. Hubble was designed to be repaired by astronauts on the space shuttle. Each time the telescope broke previously, a shuttle mission fixed it. “That we can’t do anymore, because there ain’t no shuttle,” says astronomer Helmut Jenkner of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, who is Hubble’s deputy mission head. The most recent problem started when one of the three gyroscopes that control where the telescope points failed. That wasn’t surprising, says Hubble senior project scientist Jennifer Wiseman of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. That particular gyroscope had been glitching for about a year. But when the team turned on a backup gyroscope, it didn’t function properly either.
Astronomers are working to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it from the ground. The mood is upbeat, Wiseman says. But even if the gyroscope doesn’t come back online, there are ways to point Hubble and continue observing with as few as one gyroscope.
“This is not a catastrophic failure, but it is a sign of mortality,” says astronomer Robert Kirshner of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. Like cataracts, he says, it’s “a sign of aging, but there’s a very good remedy.” While we wait for news of how Hubble is faring, here’s a look back at some of its previous hiccups and repair missions.
1990: The blurry mirror On June 27, 1990, three months after the space telescope launched, astronomers discovered an aberration in Hubble’s primary mirror. Its curvature was off by two micrometers, making the images slightly blurry.
The telescope soldiered on, despite being the butt of jokes on late-night TV. It observed a supernova that exploded in 1987 (SN: 2/18/17, p. 20), measured the distance to a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way and took its first look at Jupiter before the space shuttle Endeavour arrived to fix the mirror in December 1993. 1999: The first gyroscope crisis On November 13, 1999, Hubble was put into safe mode after the fourth of its six gyroscopes failed, leaving it without the three working gyros necessary to point precisely. An already planned preventative maintenance shuttle mission suddenly became more urgent. NASA split the mission into two parts to get to the telescope more quickly. The first part became a rescue mission: Astronauts flew the space shuttle Discovery to Hubble that December to install all new gyroscopes and a new computer.
2004: Final shuttle mission canceled After the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated while re-entering Earth’s atmosphere in 2003, NASA canceled the planned fifth and final Hubble reservicing mission. “That could really have been the beginning of the end,” Jenkner says.
The team has known for more than a decade that someday Hubble will have to work with fewer than three gyroscopes. To prepare, Hubble’s operations team deliberately shut down one of the telescope’s gyroscopes in 2005, to observe with only two.
“We’ve been thinking about this possibility for many years,” Wiseman says. “This time will come at some point in Hubble’s mission, either now or later.”
Shutting down the third gyroscope was expected to extend Hubble’s life by only eight months, until mid-2008. In the meantime, two of the telescope’s scientific instruments — the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph and the Advanced Camera for Surveys — stopped working due to power supply failures. 2009: New lease on life Fortunately, NASA restored the final servicing mission, and the space shuttle Atlantis visited Hubble in May 2009 (SN Online: 5/11/09). That mission restored Hubble’s cameras, installed new ones and crucially, left the space telescope with six new gyroscopes, three for immediate use and three backups. The three gyroscopes still in operation (including the backup that is currently malfunctioning) are of a newer type, and are expected to live five times as long as the older ones, which last four to six years.
The team expects Hubble to continue doing science well into the 2020s and to have years of overlap with its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, due to launch in 2021. “We are always worried,” says Jenkner, who has been working on Hubble since 1983. “At the same time, we are confident that we will be running for quite some time more.”
