In 2017, Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU) and Chinese Society of Astronautics initiated The Belt and Road Aerospace Innovation Alliance, with the focus to promote cooperation among alliance members in talent cultivation, scientific research, technology development and applications, etc. 

The alliance has 51 members from 14 countries including China, Pakistan, Egypt, Russia, United Kingdom, U.S., Algeria, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Egypt, France, Italy, Pakistan, Spain, and Ukraine. 

NPU has long been engaged in the joint research and development of micro-satellites with universities of countries participated in the B&R, and joint participation in discipline competitions, joint monitoring and control, including some EU aerospace projects. 

"The university has been actively co-operated and helped B&R participating countries in research. At present, we want to work together with the University of Munich in Germany to jointly develop a satellite. We hope that in the future, this satellite will be assembled in orbit and released by astronauts in orbit. Their school also provided funding to support students studying in NPU," said Huang He, Associate professor of the school of Astronautics.

NPU is located in the historic city of Xi'an, the cradle of Chinese civilization and terminus of the ancient Silk Road, it is the only multidisciplinary and research-oriented in China that is simultaneously developing education and research programs in the fields of aeronautics, astronautics, and marine technology engineering. 

It is now affiliated to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). Since the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC), NPU has always been one of the nation's key universities. The university has been recognized as a "National Unit of Civilization" and awarded the National Labor Medal.

Vice President of Northwestern Polytechnical University Zhang Weihong said "throughout the years, we also got to know more partners, like Ukraine National University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, who are very well known in the world in aerospace. We have established a close research alliance. We also carried out a winter camp in Cairo, Egypt, which was highly valued by the Egyptian Military Academy."

Zhang added after the alliance formed, a series of events had been held, such as "Young Scholars Workshop" and "The 9th Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization International Symposium" and many more.

When we met Felipe Coelho, who is from Brazil, we did not know much of his story. But after a day of filming him in class, in the lab, and talking to him about his experiences pursuing his astronautic dreams, we were all inspired by this humble young man. In his mind, no matter how hard the work or the journey might be, the goal must be accomplished.

Here is his story.

In 2017, when he interned for a CubeSat project in Germany, Coelho met his current adviser, Huang He. It was through this relationship that he learned about NPU and how it could help him pursue his dreams in aerospace engineering.

A year later, he joined a master's program in aerospace engineering at NPU with a full scholarship. He said with the fast development of China's space technology and many joint international research opportunities such as "Solar Sail" that he could participate, he is sure he is on the right track. 

The Solar Sail program that he mentioned was a joint program between NPU and Technical University of Munich of Germany. The two universities came together to discover solar sail to be launched in deep space towards Mars. This project is enabling new technologies for space exploration.

As China is continuing to enlarge the scale of its space program, many students from BRI countries started to enroll in universities in China in such majors to get more access to scholarship as well as participation in international research. In total, 30 students from countries that have participated in the BRI joined the astronautic program. 

Felipe said he has always wanted to be an astronaut, and work for NASA. Since the beginning he wanted to move forward into something that he really wanted to accomplish at the beginning.