The online research seminar for the international collaborative project on China Space Station “Flame Instabilities Affected by Vortices and Acoustic Waves (FIAVAW)” successfully kicked off on May 11, 2020, 2 pm, Beijing time. The research seminar was participated by more than 30 people including Dr. Jun Ma, Director of Overseas R&D Management Office, Tsinghua University, Miss Mengyun Chen, Project Manager, Center of International Collaboration, Center for Space Utilization, Chinese Academy of Sciences, the faculty investigators of Center for Combustion Energy (CCE), Tsinghua University, Profs. Suyuan Yu and Yu Cheng Liu, and of The University of Tokyo, Profs. Shinji Nakaya and Mitsuhiro Tsue. The seminar lasted for 3 hours and was hosted by Prof. Suyuan Yu of CCE.
Representing Tsinghua University in the greeting speech, Dr. Jun Ma welcomed the delegators from both Tsinghua and UTokyo and congratulated on the successful implementation of the international collaborative project. With the hope to contribute to the entire humanity, Dr. Ma expressed that such international collaboration can further facilitate the development of space related technology and promote quality research. During the seminar, members from Tsinghua and UTokyo took turns and provided topical presentations on the research progress of flame instabilities affected by vortices and acoustic waves. The discussion was very well participated and such format reflects the advantage of utilizing remote software for international collaborations. The various forms of international collaboration received positive feedbacks from both professors and students and facilitated actual progress of the project.
Basing on the solicitation for the United Nations/China Cooperation on the Utilization of the China Space Station (CSS), the first-run selected international collaborative projects were announced in June, 2019. Among 9 accepted projects from 23 institutions of 17 countries, 6 were finally shortlisted as “fully accepted” and 3 were “conditionally accepted”. The research areas involve space life science, biotechnology, microgravity fluid physics, microgravity combustion, astronomy, and space technologies, each representing its own research area and level of technology. This program represents the significant effort towards international collaboration in the area of manned space science research of China and is an important sign for Chinese space program to move from independent exploration to global collaboration. “Flame instabilities Affected by Vortices and Acoustic Waves (FIAVAW)” as a project of microgravity combustion is the only project among the 6 fully accepted that is led by a Chinese team. The joint team of the project consists of members from Tsinghua University and The University of Tokyo.