A remote sensing airplane made in China, the Modern Ark 60 (MA60), was delivered to AIR on Dec. 20, 2018. The plane was manufactured by Xi'an Aircraft Industry (Group) Company. Ltd.(XAC), a subsidiary of the China Aviation Industry Corporation. This is the first domestic remote sensing aircraft purchased by the Institute. and a second MA60 is expected to be delivered in the near future.

The opening ceremony for the Comprehensive Experimental Site of SAR (synthetic aperture radar) Remote Sensing was held in Zhangjiakou in north China’s Hebei Province on November 10, 2018. As Asia’s first large-scale basic science experimental facility for far-field microwave remote sensing, the Site was jointly built by the Aerospace Information Research Institute and the Government of Zhangjiakou, a co-host city and venue of 2022 Winter Olympics.

In the newly released Nature, CAS Academician Prof. GUO Huadong from the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth (RADI) published a comment titled “Steps to the digital Silk Road”, in which he invites more natural and social scientists to further promote the sharing of big data from satellite imagery and other Earth observations, so as to build a digital Silk Road and support the sustainable development of the region.

To make good use of intelligent resources housed by the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS) and promote substantial cooperation among developing countries, five CAS-TWAS centers of excellence were set up in 2013.