The fourth live class from China's space station was held on September 21, delivered by the Shenzhou-16 astronauts Jing Haipeng, Zhu Yangzhu and Gui Haichao to students on Earth. This was the first science lecture delivered from the Mengtian lab module of the Tiangong space station and the fourth in the “Tiangong Class” series.
One of the main classrooms on the ground was set in Beihang University. More than 2,400 students and teachers from the university and its primary and middle schools attended the lecture at the university's gymnasium venue.
Beihang Party Secretary Zhao Changlu, Vice Presidents Liu Shuchun and Huang Haijun, Deputy Party Secretary Cheng Bo, and Vice President Lyu Weifeng attended the lecture.
Four other ground classrooms were set in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, east China’s Zhejiang and Anhui provinces, and northwest China’s Shaanxi Province.
China Media Group (CMG) broadcast the whole event live.
In the 48-minute lecture, the astronauts introduced scenes from their work and life in the Mengtian lab module. They also demonstrated various interesting experiments in the microgravity environment, such as spherical flame and metal gyroscope experiments, and those showing the law of momentum conservation. They also explained the scientific principles of these experiments.
In order to verify how the microgravity environment would affect the burning phenomenon, Zhang Xiaotian, Associate Professor of the School of Astronautics of Beihang University, also carried out the flame experiment simultaneously on Earth, and explained the space environment and scientific principles through the comparison of experimental phenomena in space and on Earth.
During the livestreaming lecture, the astronauts had real-time interaction with teachers and students on Earth via video chat. Prof. Gui answered the question raised by Beihang senior student Wu Kunzhao about how to identify the changes in the attitude and orbit of the station without obvious reference objects in space.
After the lecture, Tian Lin, senior engineer and chief designer of China Academy of Space Technology, interacted with the teachers and students present.
Tian Lin graduated from School of Astronautics in 2012. He served as an instructor of the School in 2004 and 2005. More than 60% of his students went on to work for national defence research.
As the instructor of the 2005 undergraduate student Gui Haichao, Tian Lin told the story of him and Gui with the audience, and introduced his current work, encouraging the youth to devote themselves into the aerospace industry and contribute to the construction of our nation as a great power.
More than 20 mainstream media, including People's Daily, Xinhua News Agency and CMG, came to Beihang for reports.
Written by: Wang Qing
Photos by: Di Bailu, Song Chao, Jiang Haiyang, Zhang Keli
Reviewed by: Li Jianwei
Edited by: Jia Aiping, Lu Meili
Translated by: Lu Meili
