science

MinoSpace

MinoSpace is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand MinoSpace rather than just read about it. In short: MinoSpace (Chinese: 微纳星空; pinyin: Wēinà Xīngkōng) is a major Chinese satellite technology research, development, and manufacturing firm based in the country's capital, Beijing. Established three years after the Chinese State Council opened the space technology market to commercial participation, MinoSpace has developed and launched over two dozen remote sensing and communications satellites.

MinoSpace — illustration

Key takeaways

MinoSpace belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect MinoSpace to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of MinoSpace from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

MinoSpace (Chinese: 微纳星空; pinyin: Wēinà Xīngkōng) is a major Chinese satellite technology research, development, and manufacturing firm based in the country's capital, Beijing. Established three years after the Chinese State Council opened the space technology market to commercial participation, MinoSpace has developed and launched over two dozen remote sensing and communications satellites.

Name MinoSpace, variably written as 'Mino Space', is formally known as Beijing Weina Star Technology Company Ltd. (北京微纳星空科技股份有限公司; Běijīng Wēinà Xīngkōng Kējì Gǔfèn Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī). The first word of the company's name, 'Mino', is sometimes left untranslated in English publications, using instead the pinyin romanization of the Chinese words 微; wēi and 纳; nà, which translate to 'micro' and 'nano', respectively. Combining these two characters to form the company's Chinese name (微纳; Wēinà), the English name 'Mino' is derived from a portmanteau of 'micro' and 'nano' into 'Mino'. The word 'Space' in the company's name is a translation of the Chinese compound (two-character) word for space, 星空; xīngkōng, which is built from the characters 星; xīng; 'star' and 空; kōng; 'sky'. At times, this portion of the company's name has been translated as 'Star' instead of 'Space'.

History

Background Historically, the Chinese space program has been exclusively state-administered and eschewed privatization of space technology development. Following the originally-espoused communist ideals of the post-Civil War era of leadership under Mao Zedong, the newly-communist People's Republic of China actively fought against technological innovation, including within the Chinese space program. In 2014, the National Development and Reform Commission of the PRC's State Council published Document 60 (titled Guiding Opinions of the State Council on Innovating the Investment and Financing Mechanisms in Key Areas and Encouraging Social Investment) which officially opened the door to the 'first generation' of commercial Chinese space companies. Among the early commercial satellite manufacturers were the companies Commsat, CGSTL, and Space-OK. Bolstered by Document 60 and further encouraged by the government, the previously absent investments in Chinese commercial space firms began to grow.

Establishment As the private market for space companies entered its second generation, MinoSpace was founded on 7 August 2017 and established its headquarters in the Yongfeng Industrial Base, Haidian District, in the northwest area of Beijing city. Each of the company's founders came from the government sector and sought to bring the exclusively state-dominated satellite manufacture industry to the commercial sector. MinoSpace's founders included Gao Enyu (高恩宇) and Wu Shufan (吴树范). Gao had previously in the design department of for the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), a major state-owned civil-military launch vehicle manufacturer under the larger China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), and is best known for manufacturing the Long March series of rockets. Gao left CALT after two years and began work for the Communications Satellite Division (通信卫星事业部) of the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) as chief designer of communications satellites. Finally, in August 2017, Gao departed CAST to cofound MinoSpace. Co-founder Wu Shufan spent 17 years as a researcher and senior engineer at European institutions to include the Technical University of Braunschweig in Germany, Delt University of Technology in the Netherlands, the University of Surrey's Space Center in the United Kingdom, and at the European Space Agency's Technology Research Center. In 2013, Wu returned to China from Europe and began work as the chief engineer in Microsatellite Engineering Center of the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS).

Operations Just over a year after its establishment, the first satellite manufactured by MinoSpace was launched on 27 October 2018. The Future-1 (Welai-1) small satellite was based on MinoSpace's MN10 1.5U CubeSat and carried both two science experiments and a remote sensor for China Central Television (CCTV). Aboard the maidan launch of the Lhuque-1 rocket designed by LandSpace from Jiuquan SLC, the satellite failed to reach its intended sun-synchronous low earth orbit (LEO) and the project was declared a failure, though it did mark the first attempt to launch a satellite by a private Chinese space company. The second launch of a MinoSpace satellite occurred two days later on 29 October aboard a Long March 2C rocket at JSLC. On 20 November 2018, MinoSpace announced that it had obtained its Series A financing.

Cyberattack by Anonymous In response to allegations of a Chinese government disinformation campaign waged through Wikipedia edit warring, members of the hacktivist collective group Anonymous claimed to have compromised various webpages on the MinoSpace website, as well as the official website of the Chinese Ministry of Emergency Management in November 2022. The vandalized pages included images of then-President of Taiwan Tsai Ing-wen, the Taiwanese flag, cartoons of Winnie the Pooh (mocking Xi Jinping), and the slogans "Down with Xi Jinping" and "Restore the ROC".

Products MinoSpace offers three categories of products, satellite platforms, satellite communication (SATCOM) ground station equipment, and satellite components.

Satellite platforms

SATCOM MinoSpace also produces a Ku and Ka-band very-small-aperture terminal (VSAT), a portable telemetry tracking and command (TT&C) ground station, and a three-mode data communication terminal that interacts with 4G, Thuraya, and Beidou communication networks.

Satellite components MinoSpace manufactures and advertises UHF/VHF deployable antennas for satellites.

Headquarters The company's headquarters are located in Beijing's Aerospace City, along with the Chinese state-owned aerospace giants, China Aerospace Science & Technology Corporation (CASC) and China Aerospace Science & Industry Corporation (CASIC), Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the People's Liberation Army Aerospace Force's (PLAAF) Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center (which oversees the entirety of the Chinese military and civilian space program), and a multitude of smaller aerospace companies.

Satellites Below is a list of MinoSpace satellite launches. All dates and times listed are in UTC.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with MinoSpace

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what MinoSpace claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to MinoSpace before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about MinoSpace ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of MinoSpace

In research: MinoSpace appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses MinoSpace in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: MinoSpace is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Aerospace companies of China, Chinese companies established in 2017, Manufacturing companies based in Beijing, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for MinoSpace outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study MinoSpace in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what MinoSpace means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain MinoSpace out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is MinoSpace in simple terms?

Why does MinoSpace matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study MinoSpace?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on MinoSpace.