China's mission to Mars, new COVID-19 service and Russia's anti-satellite weaponry

WHO launches COVID-19 law lab

Amidst the ongoing coronavirus crisis, WHO has launched a new service called the COVID-19 Law Lab. The step has been taken due to increased requirement for urgent legislative action to control and reduce the pandemic.  

The initiative would gather and share legal documents from over 190 countries across the world to help states establish and implement strong legal frameworks to manage the pandemic. The documents are accessible to anyone who visits the website and would be containing important information on things like - ways to access medicine, disease surveillance technologies, isolation and quarantine measures, movement restrictions and distancing, ways to access emergency, and public health services. You can visit the website at https://covidlawlab.org/

The Lab is a joint project of the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law and Georgetown University.

China joins the space race

This Thursday, China launched its own Mars probe designed to orbit, land and explore the planet in a single mission. The craft was carried by the Long March-5 rocket form Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site and carried a mass of about five tonnes.

Named Tianwen-1, this is China's first mission to Mars. The journey to the Red Planet will take about six to seven months and the probe is expected to reach Mars by somewhere around February 2021.

After entering the Martian orbit, the craft would spend two to three months circling the planet and looking for potential sites for landing the rover.

Upon landing, the rover will start the exploration and would be receiving communications from the orbiter above. The rover is expected to have a life span of about 90 Martian days, and the orbiter would be active for one complete Martian year (about 687 days on Earth).

The mission is set to study the planet's morphology and geological structure, soil characteristics and distribution of surface water ice, surface material composition, atmospheric ionosphere and surface climate and environment, as well as physical field and internal structure of Mars.

Russia is reportedly working on space-based anti-satellite weaponry

ROSCOSMOS, the agency responsible for space related activities of the Russian government, has recently been conducting some activities which the officials are calling close up examination of own satellites via the use of specialized equipment of small space craft. 

But in a recent statement released on July 23 by the USSPACECOM,  Gen. John W. "Jay" Raymond has said -  "The Russian satellite system used to conduct this on-orbit weapons test is the same satellite system that we raised concerns about earlier this year, when Russia maneuvered near a U.S. government satellite."

Gen Raymond, who is the Commander of U.S. Space Command and the U.S. Space Chief of Space Operations also added, "This is further evidence of Russia's continuing efforts to develop and test space-based systems, and consistent with the Kremlin's published military doctrine to employ weapons that hold U.S. and allied space assets at risk."

The U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Dr. Christopher Ford also added, "This event highlights Russia's hypocritical advocacy of outer space arms control, with which Moscow aims to restrict the capabilities of the United States while clearly having no intention of halting its own counter-space program — both ground-based anti-satellite capabilities and what would appear to be actual in-orbit anti-satellite weaponry."