Nine projects selected from 17 countries will be sent to China's Space Station in the coming years, based on an agreement between the China Manned Space Agency and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs. CGTN's Wu Lei talked with Nicolas Produit, who is now working on one of such international projects. 

WU LEI CGTN Reporter "The POLAR 2 detector, which you and your team are now developing, is one of the international projects set to be sent to China space station. Can you tell us about this detector, and its goal?"

NICOLAS PRODUIT Astronomy Department University of Geneva "When the black hole is created, emit a big flash of gamma-ray and we call this phenomenon a gamma-ray burst. Creating the black hole is extremely important scientific subject. We don't know much about it. So, all the information we can gather is important. So, we want to ask one question that are those gamma rays that are produced polarized, and the disposition will tell us a lot about magnetic fields and things like that during the formation of blackhole. So, this is exactly the question we want to work out in Chinese space station."

WU LEI CGTN Reporter "To launch such an advanced facility into space is never an easy task. When is this detector scheduled to be launched?"

NICOLAS PRODUIT Astronomy Department University of Geneva "You know those act or a kind of unique and state of the art. So, it is complicated to conserve them. But I think for the Polar-2, we finished now completely the prototype state. We know exactly what we want to build. The result we get in the lab with the prototype are really excellent. So, we start to cut metal now and we want to be ready in 2026. So, launch date is around 2026."

WU LEI CGTN Reporter "Your first POLAR experiment was sent to China's Tiangong 2 space lab back in 2016, now your POLAR 2 will also sent to Tiangong Space station. What is your assessment of the opportunities being offered to global scientists by China's Space Station?"

NICOLAS PRODUIT Astronomy Department University of Geneva "Collaboration with the scientists was really excellent. We share the same will and the same way of working. And I think ESA says that they don't want to send astronauts to the Chinese space station. This is bad decision. I think China is very open and the opportunities are really very interesting. I know that you have an exciting science project, like a space telescope, extremely good space telescope. You know, this opens very nice project for science in China. And I'm very happy that China is opening international collaboration. And I really hope that as many people as possible, we'll use this opportunity."