China establishes space weather centre with Russia – national weather service

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China and Russia have established a space weather centre in Beijing as part of worldwide efforts to improve global space weather centre systems, the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) said on Wednesday.

The China-Russia Consortium (CRC) space weather centre will be operated by the CMA, China’s Civil Aviation Administration and the Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring, China’s national weather service said in a statement. Space weather is relevant to satellite operations, aviation safety and ground pipe networks, said the CMA.

The centre is also aimed at increasing China’s international influence in space weather aviation services, the CMA added. It comes as China has been developing its space programmes, having this year launched a crewed mission to build a space station. China has already built a preliminary framework for a space weather operational mechanism and is able to make short to long-term weather prediction forecasts, the CMA said.