Bradley Perrett covered China, Japan, South Korea and Australia. He is a Mandarin-speaking Australian.
Before joining Aviation Week in 2006 he was a macroeconomics, politics and aerospace journalist with Reuters. Perrett holds a bachelor’s degree in law from Macquarie University, Sydney. He left Aviation Week in 2020.
YAOGAN LAUNCHED: China has launched the ninth unit in its Yaogan series of remote sensing satellites. A Long March 4C launcher successfully placed Yaogan 9 in orbit on March 5, the Jiuquan satellite launch center says, adding that the spacecraft will survey land resources, forecast grain output and help manage disasters — the same tasks mentioned for earlier Yaogan satellites. The Pentagon lists the remote sensing satellites among Chinese military assets.
Air China looks likely to take control of Shenzhen Airlines, building up its position against rival China Southern in the country’s south after gaining control of the target company’s management.
China’s plans to launch its second lunar orbiter are still on track for October, according to Chinese press reports, but the unmanned docking target designed as the Asian nation’s next step toward its own space station has been delayed until next year. The Xinhua news agency cited Qi Faren, who led design of the Shenzhou human-rated capsules that have carried six Chinese astronauts to orbit, as saying the Tiangong-1 docking target won’t be launched until 2011.
