The Kuafu project ( simplified Chinese: 夸父计划; traditional Chinese: 夸父計劃; pinyin: Kuāfù Jìhuà) is a Chinese space project to establish a space weather forecasting system composed of three satellites, originally to be completed by 2012. [1] As of the Solar Wind XIII conference [2] in June 2012, the planned launch date was 2017. However, due to withdrawal first by Canada and then ESA, the project was postponed. [3] It was launched on 9 october 2022. [4]
The project is named after Kuafu, a giant in Chinese mythology who chased the sun and died trying.
One of these satellites would be placed at the Sun-Earth Lagrangian Point L1, while the other two would be placed in polar orbits. [5]
The first of the polar orbit satellites, the Advanced Space-based Solar Observator (ASO-S, also unofficially known as Kuafu-1 (夸父一号) ), was launched on 8 October 2022. [6] Because of the name "Kuafu", the project may be restarted.