Long March-4B rocket carrying the HJ-2A and HJ-2B satellites lifted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center At 11:23 (Beijing Time) on September 27. Two Polarized Scanning Atmospheric correctors (or PSAC) developed by the Anhui Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics.

The report on "Big Earth Data in Support of the Sustainable Development Goals (2020)" was released on September 26, 2020 by the Chinese government at a video-conference on Poverty Eradication and South-South Cooperation, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations.

China will set up an International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to facilitate the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda, announced Chinese President XI Jinping during his UN General Assembly address on September 22, 2020.

The University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) is the educational arm of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). It has quickly risen as a leader among Chinese universities, strengthened by close integration of scientific research and education. Here, Yueliang Wu, a renowned physicist and a CAS member, discusses the unique model for running the university.

The EAST team and its international partners held an online ceremony on Sept. 22 to celebrate delivery of the completed coils and units, namely six bottom correction coils (or BCCs) for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (or ITER) and lower divertor's 456 tungsten plasma facing units (or W-PFUs) for WEST facility operated by French Atomic and Alternative Energy Commission (or CEA), to mark this milestone in their collaboration history.

China and Russia kicked off on Wednesday their Year of Scientific and Technological Innovation which involves one thousand plus scientific activities to be scheduled. President Xi Jinping made his remarks in his congratulatory letter and Russian President Putin send his congratulations to the Year's opening. A bilateral scientific collaborative agreement to deepen their joint work on NICA mega science facility was signed by HUANG Wei, Vice minister of Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology and G. V. Trubnikov, first vice-director of Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (or JINR).

The coronavirus pandemic has thrust virologist Shi Zhengli into a fierce spotlight. Shi, who's been nicknamed "Bat Woman," heads a group that studies bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), in the city in China where the pandemic began, and many have speculated that the virus that causes COVID-19 accidentally escaped from her lab—a theory promoted by U.S. President Donald Trump. Some have even suggested it could have been engineered there.

ITER, the most ambitious international project that involves thirty five nations, thirty thousand people work together to share one simple goal, illuminating the way to new energy, now symbolically started its assembly as the kick-off ceremony held on Tuesday 28, July at ITER site in Cadarache of southern France.

A team of Chinese researchers published a population-monitoring-based report, illustrating the profile of asymptomatic patients and asymptomatic phrases of COVID-19, from exposure to outcome. The report, for the first time, proposed that "asymptomatic" COVID-19 should be categorized into three different types: asymptomatic carrier, presymptomatic patients who develop symptoms after being detected, and patients with their symptom relieved during convalescent period.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) achieved consensus on promoting the institutional partnership and exploring potential cooperation in priority areas for the next stage, after five joint thematic workshops held online from June 16 to June 24. Both sides will further collaboration on Climate Change Impacts, Sustainable Agriculture, Health Science and Biotechnology, Nanotechnology and New Materials for Energy, and Marine Science and Blue Economy.

Zhoushan - the first 500kW Sharp Eagle wave energy converter (WEC) was officially delivered on June 30, 2020 in Mazhou island. Zhoushan was researched, developed and designed by Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion (GIEC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and built by China Merchants Heavy Industry (Shenzhen) Co., LTD. It is the largest single installed wave energy converter in China.

Around 11:00 a.m., June 26, PF6, the 400-ton superconducting magnet coil with an 11.2m external diameter, rolled to Cadarache, France, the ITER site, on a 342-wheel flat-bed trailer, after its over three months sea journey starting from March this year. A takeover ceremony was held on the morning in which Bernard BIGOT, Director-General of International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) Organization and other staff were waiting there to welcome the giant guest.

The Computer Network Information Center (CNIC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) signed an agreement with the European Grid Infrastructure (EGI) Foundation on June 23 to launch cooperation on open science cloud, hoping to develop more flexible and interoperable e-infrastructures and services for supporting global research activities.

On the evening of June 18, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officially released the virus genome sequence data of COVID-19 outbreak in Xinfadi, a wholesale food market in southwest Beijing, through Novel Coronavirus National Science and Technology Resource Service System.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Dutch Research Council (NWO) have granted two joint research projects on "Green Cities" early this week. The two projects, focusing on better integrating green areas into a city, will transform research results to urban planning and help provide more scientific basis for sustainable development of cities.

The CAS "Big Earth Data Science Engineering" Program (CASEarth) released their research results of using big Earth data in support of land degradation neutrality assessment along Belt and Road Region on June 17, 26th World's Desertification and Drought Day.

Earth observation and crop monitoring on a massive scale are neither easy nor inexpensive exercises, but both are necessary for proper food security planning. Yet, many developing countries simply don't have access to required tools, either due to technology deficits or costs. China aims to help bridge this technology gap by offering developing countries access to its earth observation satellite system for crop monitoring, CropWatch, in partnership with United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD), under the secretariat of UNCTAD.

With the close collaboration between National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) and European Space Agency (ESA), ESA's world-leading interactive celestial atlas, ESASky, has now been translated into Chinese.