The International Partnership for Innovative Teams was jointly proposed by China’s State Administration of Foreign Expert Affairs and CAS. In 2013, the Innovative Team for Advanced Research of Space Science Missions and Payloads began its first year of trial operation. Its top priority is to further elaborate scientific goals for future space science satellite missions and achieve key technological breakthroughs in space missions.

The team is composed of 14 space scientists, including seven scientists from Chinese institutions. They are: WU Ji, WANG Chi, LIU Ying, LIU Yong and CHEN Ding, from NSSC; ZHANG Shuangnan, from the CAS Institute of High Energy Physics; and SHEN Zhiqiang, from the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, CAS. Team members from foreign institutions include: Roger M. Bonnet, from the International Space Science Institute (ISSI); SONG Pu, from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell; CUI Wei, from Purdue University; Leonid Gurvits, from the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe; George K. Parks, from the University of California at Berkeley; Berndt Klecker, from the Max Plank Society; and Michael Shao, from the California Institute of Technology