Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology

There is an increasingly urgent need of lightweight components in aerospace industry, among which aluminum (Al) alloys have been the optimal materials of choice for aircraft structural parts since being used in the Junkers F.13 aircraft in the 1920s. Compared to other metal materials, Al alloys have a lower density, and the use of Al alloys reduces the total weight of the aircraft and improves fuel efficiency and load capacity. Meanwhile, the strength and hardness of Al alloys with alloying and heat treatment can be significantly enhanced for uses in high loads and vibration environments. Furthermore, in the harsh aerospace environment, aircraft may receive various climatic conditions and chemical corrosion. Due to good corrosion and fatigue resistance, Al alloys demonstrate excellent performance under these conditions, ensuring the long–term service life of aircraft. In addition, Al alloys have good recyclability, and they can be recycled to reduce resource consumption and environmental load, in line with the principle of sustainable development. In recent years, although composites have been widely used in aerospace, high–strength Al alloys are still in an indispensable position. Therefore, this article reviews the progress and applications of Al alloys commonly used in aerospace. The common strengthening methods and advanced manufacturing and processing technologies of Al alloy are also discussed, which can provide references for the development of advanced high–performance aviation Al alloys in the future.

Due to the energy crisis within recent decades, renewable energies such as solar, wind and tide energies have received a lot of attention. However, these renewable energies are dependent on the time and season. Consequently, energy storage systems are needed to fully utilize these energies including their connection with smart grids. Aqueous rechargeable lithium batteries (ARLBs) may be an ideal energy storage system due to its excellent safety and reliability. However, since the introduction of ARLBs in 1994, the progress on improving their performance has been very limited. Recently, their rate performance, especially superfast charging performance, reversible capacity and cycling life of their electrode materials were markedly improved. The present work reviews the latest advances in the exploration of the electrode materials and the development of battery systems. Also the main challenges in this field are briefly commented on and discussed.

LiMn2O4 nanotube with a preferred orientation of (400) planes is prepared by using multiwall carbon nanotubes as a sacrificial template. Because of the nanostructure and preferred orientation, it shows a superfast second-level charge capability as a cathode for aqueous rechargeable lithium battery. At the charging rate of 600C (6 s), 53.9% capacity could be obtained. Its reversible capacity can be 110 mAh/g, and it also presents excellent cycling behavior due to the porous tube structure to buffer the strain and stress from Jahn-Teller effects.

MoO(3) nanoplates were prepared as anode material for aqueous supercapacitors. They can deliver a high energy density of 45 W h kg(-1) at 450 W kg(-1) and even maintain 29 W h kg(-1) at 2 kW kg(-1) in 0.5 M Li(2)SO(4) aqueous electrolyte. These results present a new direction to explore non-carbon anode materials.

A nanocomposite of MoO3 coated with polypyrrole (PPy) was prepared as an anode material for ARLBs. When nanochain LiMn2O4 is used as the cathode, the ARLB can deliver an energy density of 45 Wh kg−1 at 350 W kg−1 and even maintain 38 Wh kg−1 at 6 kW kg−1 in 0.5 M Li2SO4 aqueous electrolyte, corresponding to an good rate capability. In addition, its cycling behavior is greatly improved compared with the virginal MoO3. Our findings provide valuable clues to improve the comprehensive performance of ARLBs for practical application. This unique performance demonstrates that this battery will be of great promise as a power source for large power devices such as power loading and the storage of solar and wind energies.

Abstract Semiconductor photocatalysis is currently attracting tremendous attention as it holds great potential to address the issues of energy shortage and environmental pollution. 2D materials are excellent candidates for photocatalysis owing to their attractive structural and electronic properties. However, practical applications of 2D materials are still hindered due to limitations, such as fast electron–hole recombination and poor redox ability, both of which lead to low efficiency of photocatalytic reactions. Constructing a heterojunction is the most widely used strategy to solve these problems. In particular, heterojunctions composed of 2D materials interfaced with other semiconductors of different dimensionalities can integrate the respective advantages and mitigate the drawbacks of each component. Hence, this review focuses on the recent developments in the rational design of 2D material‐based heterojunction photocatalysts with different configurations. The synthetic strategies, physicochemical properties, component functions, photocatalytic mechanisms, and applications of these heterojunctions are systematically summarized. Emphasis is placed on correlations between photocatalytic performance and heterojunction configuration. Finally, the ongoing challenges and potential directions for future development of 2D material‐based heterojunction photocatalysts are also proposed.

Object detection has made tremendous progress in natural images over the last decade. However, the results are hardly satisfactory when the natural image object detection algorithm is directly applied to satellite images. This is due to the intrinsic differences in the scale and orientation of objects generated by the bird’s-eye perspective of satellite photographs. Moreover, the background of satellite images is complex and the object area is small; as a result, small objects tend to be missing due to the challenge of feature extraction. Dense objects overlap and occlusion also affects the detection performance. Although the self-attention mechanism was introduced to detect small objects, the computational complexity increased with the image’s resolution. We modified the general one-stage detector YOLOv5 to adapt the satellite images to resolve the above problems. First, new feature fusion layers and a prediction head are added from the shallow layer for small object detection for the first time because it can maximally preserve the feature information. Second, the original convolutional prediction heads are replaced with Swin Transformer Prediction Heads (SPHs) for the first time. SPH represents an advanced self-attention mechanism whose shifted window design can reduce the computational complexity to linearity. Finally, Normalization-based Attention Modules (NAMs) are integrated into YOLOv5 to improve attention performance in a normalized way. The improved YOLOv5 is termed SPH-YOLOv5. It is evaluated on the NWPU-VHR10 dataset and DOTA dataset, which are widely used for satellite image object detection evaluations. Compared with the basal YOLOv5, SPH-YOLOv5 improves the mean Average Precision (mAP) by 0.071 on the DOTA dataset.

With the increasingly dominant role of smartphones in our lives, mobile health care systems integrating advanced point-of-care technologies to manage chronic diseases are gaining attention. Using a multidisciplinary design principle coupling electrical engineering, software development, and synthetic biology, we have engineered a technological infrastructure enabling the smartphone-assisted semiautomatic treatment of diabetes in mice. A custom-designed home server SmartController was programmed to process wireless signals, enabling a smartphone to regulate hormone production by optically engineered cells implanted in diabetic mice via a far-red light (FRL)-responsive optogenetic interface. To develop this wireless controller network, we designed and implanted hydrogel capsules carrying both engineered cells and wirelessly powered FRL LEDs (light-emitting diodes). In vivo production of a short variant of human glucagon-like peptide 1 (shGLP-1) or mouse insulin by the engineered cells in the hydrogel could be remotely controlled by smartphone programs or a custom-engineered Bluetooth-active glucometer in a semiautomatic, glucose-dependent manner. By combining electronic device-generated digital signals with optogenetically engineered cells, this study provides a step toward translating cell-based therapies into the clinic.

Abstract Porous ultrathin 2D catalysts are attracting great attention in the field of electro/photocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and overall water splitting. Herein, a universal pH‐controlled wet‐chemical strategy is reported followed by thermal and phosphorization treatment to prepare large‐size, porous and ultrathin bimetallic phosphide (NiCoP) nanosheets, in which graphene oxide is adopted as a template to determine the size of products. The thickness of the resultant NiCoP nanosheets ranges from 3.5 to 12.8 nm via delicately adjusting pH from 7.8 to 8.5. The thickness‐dependent electrocatalytic performance is evidenced experimentally and explained by computational studies. The prepared large‐size ultrathin NiCoP nanosheets show excellent bifunctional electrocatalytic activity for overall water splitting, with low overpotentials of 34.3 mV for HER and 245.0 mV for oxygen evolution reaction, respectively, at 10 mA cm −2 . Furthermore, the NiCoP nanosheets exhibit superior photocatalytic HER performance, achieving a high HER rate of 238.2 mmol h −1 g −1 in combination with commonly used photocatalyst CdS, which is far superior to that of Pt/CdS (81.7 mmol h −1 g −1 ). All these results demonstrate large‐size porous ultrathin NiCoP nanosheets as an efficient and multifunctional electro/photocatalyst for water splitting.

Abstract The Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory (ASO-S) is a mission proposed for the 25th solar maximum by the Chinese solar community. The scientific objectives are to study the relationships between the solar magnetic field, solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Three payloads are deployed: the Full-disk vector MagnetoGraph (FMG), the Lyman- α Solar Telescope (LST) and the Hard X-ray Imager (HXI). ASO-S will perform the first simultaneous observations of the photospheric vector magnetic field, non-thermal imaging of solar flares, and the initiation and early propagation of CMEs on a single platform. ASO-S is scheduled to be launched into a 720 km Sun-synchronous orbit in 2022. This paper presents an overview of the mission till the end of Phase-B and the beginning of Phase-C.

Abstract To address the limitations of contemporary lithium-ion batteries, particularly their low energy density and safety concerns, all-solid-state lithium batteries equipped with solid-state electrolytes have been identified as an up-and-coming alternative. Among the various SEs, organic–inorganic composite solid electrolytes (OICSEs) that combine the advantages of both polymer and inorganic materials demonstrate promising potential for large-scale applications. However, OICSEs still face many challenges in practical applications, such as low ionic conductivity and poor interfacial stability, which severely limit their applications. This review provides a comprehensive overview of recent research advancements in OICSEs. Specifically, the influence of inorganic fillers on the main functional parameters of OICSEs, including ionic conductivity, Li + transfer number, mechanical strength, electrochemical stability, electronic conductivity, and thermal stability are systematically discussed. The lithium-ion conduction mechanism of OICSE is thoroughly analyzed and concluded from the microscopic perspective. Besides, the classic inorganic filler types, including both inert and active fillers, are categorized with special emphasis on the relationship between inorganic filler structure design and the electrochemical performance of OICSEs. Finally, the advanced characterization techniques relevant to OICSEs are summarized, and the challenges and perspectives on the future development of OICSEs are also highlighted for constructing superior ASSLBs.

A hybrid of V2O5 nanowires and MWCNTs coated with polypyrrole (PPy) was prepared as an anode material for ARLBs. The hybrid shows a good electrochemical reversibility since the PPy coating can effectively prevent the dissolution of the reduced vanadium ions.

Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) has broad application prospects due to its high fabrication accuracy and excellent performance, but the dynamic mechanical properties of LPBF components are relatively low due to defects of the melt track such as protrusions and depressions, whose generation mechanisms remain unclear. In this work, we investigate the correlation between the ex situ melt track properties and the in situ high-speed, high-resolution characterization. We correlate the protrusion at the starting position of the melt track with the droplet ejection behaviour and backward surging melt. We also reveal that the inclination angles of the depression walls are consistent with the ejection angles of the backward-ejected spatter. Furthermore, we quantify the vapour recoil pressure by in situ characterization of the deflection of the typical forward-ejected spatter. Our results clarify the intrinsic correlation of the melt track properties, which is important for the stable LPBF formation with few defects.

To fulfill the principles of green chemistry, renewable magnolol and furfurylamine were taken to synthesize benzoxazine under microwave irradiation using poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) as the solvent. The reaction was monitored by the yield of target compound under varied conditions. Only in 5 min, the yield of target benzoxazine monomer (M-fa) could be high up to 73.5% in PEG 600 system, indicating the desired advantage of microwave irradiation for benzoxazine synthesis. After the chemical structure of M-fa was confirmed, its polymerization behavior, processability, and thermo-mechanical properties were carefully evaluated. The cured resins presented a high glass transition temperature of 303 °C and exceedingly good thermal stability with 5% and 10% weight-loss temperature higher than 440 and 463 °C, respectively, and a char yield of 61.3%. In addition, M-fa demonstrated viscosity lower than 1 Pa·s during the temperature range from 100 to 194 °C, which indicated its good processability. This work provided us a strategy for the synthesis of high bio-based content high-performance thermosets under environmental-friendly conditions, that is, microwave-assisted heating method and green solvent.

A multilayer frequency selective surface (FSS) with subwavelength fractal elements based on the antenna-filter- antenna (AFA) concept is proposed in this paper. The upper fractal patches are inductive and non-resonant, and the fractal slots on the ground provide a capacitance. The thin substrate is equivalent to a transformer and some resonant modes are produced. Multiple transmission poles are obtained by cascading multilayer two-dimensional periodic structure array of the fractal patches and slots on the ground. The cell periods along x and y directions are the same and the total height is 8 mm, and the fractional bandwidth reaches 30% at normal incidence. To analyze and understand the operating mechanism of the FSS, the equivalent circuit model (ECM) is proposed to analyze the transmission and reflection characteristics. The results of the synthesis from ECM agree well with the results of full-wave simulation. The multilayer AFA-FSS has been manufactured and measured to verify the effectiveness and correctness of the design and synthesis. The simulated results are in good agreement with the tested ones.

In this paper, a novel polarization-reconfigurable converter (PRC) is proposed based on a multilayer frequency-selective surface (MFSS). First, the MFSS is designed using the square patches and the grid lines array to determine the operational frequency and bandwidth, and then the corners of the square patches are truncated to produce the phase difference of 90° between the two orthogonal linear components for circular polarization performance. To analyze and synthesize the PRC array, the operational mechanism is described in detail. The relation of the polarization states as a function of the rotating angle of the PRC array is summarized from the principle of operation. Therefore, the results show that the linear polarization (LP) from an incident wave can be reconfigured to LP, right- and left-hand circular polarizations by rotating the free-standing converter screen. The cell periods along x- and y-directions are the same, and their total height is 6 mm. The fractional bandwidth of axial ratio (AR) less than 3 dB is more than 15% with respect to the center operating frequency of 10 GHz at normal incidence. Simultaneously, the AR characteristics of different incidence angles for oblique incidence with TE and TM polarizations show that the proposed PRC has good polarization and angle stabilities. Moreover, the general design procedure and method is presented. Finally, a circularly shaped PRC array using the proposed PRC element based on the MFSS design is fabricated and measured. The agreement between the simulated and measured results is excellent.

Open-phase fault is a common failure in permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM), which would degrade motor performance and increase its loss due to the unbalanced phase currents. However, conventional fault-tolerant strategies suffer from the tracking problem of sinusoidal current references. In this paper, different from previous fault-tolerant strategies, a new fault-tolerant method for open-phase PMSM is proposed by designing a novel transformation matrix for current/voltage references. With the new transformation matrix, the voltage/current references in the d-q frame can be transformed to the phase voltage/current references of the two remaining phases. With the proposed method, open-phase fault-tolerant implementation can be much easier (proportional-integral controller is enough) and its performance can be much higher. Besides, as the tolerant method is designed based on the four-leg inverter, stronger fault-tolerance capability can be obtained compared with the three-phase inverter-based method. Finally, the experimental results confirm the validity of the proposed fault-tolerant method.

A surface-fluorinated NCA is prepared for the first time by a one-step facile and dry method, and it exhibits higher capacity, better rate capability and excellent cycling stability.

Abstract As part of the Tianwen-1 mission, the Zhurong rover successfully touched down in southern Utopia Planitia on 15 May 2021. On the basis of the new sub-metre-resolution images from the High Resolution Imaging Camera on board the Tianwen-1 orbiter, we determined that the Zhurong rover landed at 109.925° E, 25.066° N at an elevation of −4,099.4 m. The landing site is near the highland–lowland boundary 1 and multiple suspected shorelines 2–7 . Under the guidance of the remote sensing survey, the Zhurong rover is travelling south for specific in situ investigation. Supported by the six payloads on board the rover 8 , its initial key targets are rocks, rocky fields, transverse aeolian ridges and subsurface structures along the path. Extended investigation will aim at troughs and cones in the distance. A better understanding of the formation mechanisms of these targets may shed light on the historical volcanism and water/ice activities within the landing area, as well as the activities of the wind. These results may reveal the characteristics and evolution of the ancient Martian environment and advance the exploration of the habitability of ancient Mars.

Abstract Nanostructures on bodies of biological inhabitants in severe environments can exhibit excellent thermoregulation, which provide inspirations for artificial radiative cooling materials. However, achieving both large‐scale manufacturing and flexible form‐compatibility to various applications needs remains as a formidable challenge. Here a biomimetic strategy is adopted to design a thermal photonic composite inspired by the previously unexplored golden cicada's evolutionarily optimized thermoregulatory ability. A microimprint combined with phase separation method is developed for fabricating a biomimetic photonic material made of porous polymer–ceramic composite profiled in microhumps. The composite demonstrates high solar reflectance (97.6%) and infrared emissivity (95.5%) in atmospheric window, which results in a cooling power of 78 W m −2 and a maximum subambient temperature drop of 6.6 °C at noon. Moreover, the technique facilitates multiform manufacturing of the composites beyond films, as demonstrated by additive printing into general 3D structures. This work offers biomimetic approach for developing high‐performance thermal regulation materials and devices.