{"id":235588,"date":"2026-01-09T06:13:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T06:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/235588\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T06:13:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T06:13:15","slug":"why-chinese-space-station-is-studying-how-gravity-affects-battery-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/235588\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Chinese space station is studying how gravity affects battery performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Led by only the second civilian the country has sent into space, China had started a series of experiments on board its Tiangong space station that could lead to the development of safer and more powerful space batteries, state media reported on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The tests on lithium-ion batteries run by Zhang Hongzhang, a professor at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, could help scientists better understand how gravity affects the workings of the batteries.<\/p>\n

The country\u2019s first civilian astronaut was an aerospace engineer and professor at Beihang University, Gui Haichao<\/a>, who went to the space station in 2023.<\/p>\n

Zhang\u2019s research covers a variety of advanced batteries, including lithium-ion batteries, which are a key power source for space exploration thanks to their high energy density, light weight and reliability.<\/p>\n

In an interview published a day before the launch in late October, Zhang told the official China Youth Daily that he applied at once after seeing a 2018 astronaut recruitment notice, which for the first time was aimed at flight engineers and specialist scientists as well as military pilots.<\/p>\n

His main task is to conduct experiments on the space station and communicate with ground researchers to maximise results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Led by only the second civilian the country has sent into space, China had started a series of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[119944,119946,119947,61,60,69629,82,70336,247,16883,119945],"class_list":["post-235588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-beihang-university","tag-china-youth-daily","tag-gui-haichao","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-lithium-ion-batteries","tag-science","tag-shenzhou-21-mission","tag-space","tag-tiangong-space-station","tag-zhang-hongzhang"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}