Shooting stars

The Tianzhou 2 cargo spacecraft, which was launched in Hainan in May. Xie Jixiao and his friends co-founded the group about a year ago because they wanted to film the launch of China's Tiangong Space Station's core module Tianhe. Last year witnessed great achievements for China's space industry, such as the successful completion of the first phase of its ambitious Tiangong space station program and landing a rover on Mars for scientific exploration. When Xie first went to film rocket launches in 2020, he would take three or four cameras with tripods and different lenses. When the Tianhe core module was launched into space at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province last April, Xie and his friends rallied 40 volunteer photographers and 10 coordinators for their ambitious project.