Chinese astronaut training center

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The Chinese Astronaut Training Center ( Chinese  中國 航天 員 科研 訓練 中心  /  中国 航天 员 科研 训练 中心 , Pinyin Zhōngguó Hángtiānyuán Kēyán Xùnliàn Zhōngxīn ), in short Chinese Astronaut Center (中国 航天 员 中心) in the Beijing City District Military Department for Haidian is a facility of the Central Department for Haidian . Its main task is the selection, training and medical supervision of the Chinese space travelers (often called " Taikonauts " abroad ) as well as the development and manufacture of space suits and space food. Since 1985 the center has also acted as a university.

On March 21, 2008, the main belt asteroid 35313 , also known as 1997 AC6, was named "Hangtianyuan" after the Chinese Astronaut Center ( Zhongguo Hangtianyuan Zhongxin ).

history

The history of the astronaut training center goes back to 1958, when, after Qian Xuesen and Zhao Jiuzhang made a proposal in January of that year, the Chinese Academy of Sciences was instructed to explore the possibilities for a Chinese satellite - the so-called " Project 581 ". As part of this project, the “Research Group High Atmospheric Physiology” (高空 生理 研究 组) was formed in mid-August 1958 at what was then the Institute for Biophysics of the Academy of Sciences (中国科学院 生物 物理 研究所), which deals with the development of life support systems for living beings flying in rockets should deal. At the same time, a working group for space medicine (宇宙 医学 专业 小组) was set up at the Chinese Academy of Medicine (中国 医学 科学院), and a research laboratory for space medicine (宇宙 医学 研究) at the then Academy of Military Medicine of the People's Liberation Army (中国人民解放军 军事 医学 科学院)室).

While the satellite project was initially postponed in January 1959 on the instructions of Deng Xiaoping , space medicine research continued at a low level. 1960 Chinese representatives attended the mediation Zhao Jiuzhangs at one of scientists of the socialist countries organized conference on space technology and space medicine in part, and in the same year, the research group upper atmosphere physiology at the direction of the State Planning Commission in the State Council of the People's Republic of China to the "Research Laboratory for Space Biology" (宇宙生物 研究室) expanded. Experiments were carried out with mice, rats and small dogs, the laboratory was expanded to include three departments, where in 1966 more than 100 scientists dealt with animal experiments on the ground, the selection and training of test animals for suborbital flights and the construction of the corresponding equipment .

In early 1968, Qian Xuesen submitted a report to the then Defense Technology Commission of the People's Liberation Army , in which he proposed that the space medical facilities be merged. The Defense Technology Commission approved Qian's proposal, and on April 1, 1968 in Beijing the laboratories of the Academy of Sciences, Academy of Medicine and Academy of Military Medicine became the "Research Institute for Space Medicine and Technology" (宇宙 医学 及 工程 研究所), internally referred to as "Research Institute 507" (五 〇 七 所) and subordinated to the Defense Technology Commission. When it was founded, the institute had 1265 employees, the first director of the institute was the military doctor He Quanxuan (何 权 轩, * 1919). Initially, the institute was located on the Changping campus of the University of Beijing , then had to move several times in the greater Beijing area due to the relocation of the university as part of the " Third Front ", in some cases as far as Shanxi and Henan . In 1971 it was transformed into the "Research Institute for Space Medicine and Technology" (航天 医学 工程 研究所) until it finally found a permanent home on June 25, 1986, across from Beijing Agricultural University in Haidian District, Qinghua Street and Xueqing Street.

On April 24, 1970, China's first satellite, Dong Fang Hong I, successfully lifted off into space. Less than three months later, on July 14, 1970, Mao Zedong approved a plan by the Defense Technology Commission of the People's Liberation Army to select spacemen and build a spaceship similar to the American Gemini capsules . After the July 14th date, this venture, which provided for two astronauts to be put into space by the end of 1973, was called "Project 714" (714 工程). This was a largely fictional project. 19 space travelers were selected and space food developed, but the spaceship called Shuguang-1 (一号 一号, “Dawn 1”) never got beyond a model made of wood and cardboard. When those responsible asked for more money at the beginning of 1972, Mao declared that earthly things had priority and that space would be dealt with later ("先把 地球 上 的 事 搞好 ， 地球 外 的 事 往后 放 放"), something that Prime Minister Zhou Enlai Qian Xuesen had expressed earlier. On May 13, 1972, the last astronaut was sent back to his original air force unit, in March 1975 the project was discontinued by the Defense Technology Commission on the instructions of the State Council, and in 1977 more than 2/3 of the staff of the Research Institute of Space Medicine and Technology were dismissed .

However, further research was carried out in the field of life support systems, somatics and the transport of living beings on satellites, which were intensified from 1981, from 1986 within the framework of " Program 863 ", ie the national program started in March of that year under Deng Xiaoping to promote high technology. On October 5, 1990, at 2:15 p.m. local time, a return satellite of the type " Groundbreaker -1 " (尖兵 一号, Pinyin Jiānbīng Yīhào ), the 12th in the series, took off from the Jiuquan Cosmodrome with a Changzheng-2 launcher two white mice in a cabin designed by the Research Institute for Space Medicine and Technology, which kept the temperature between 14 and 28 ° C and had a feeding mechanism for the animals, plus telemetry for the cabin itself and the body functions of the mice. After an eight-day flight, the animals landed safely back in China on October 13, 1990 at 12 noon.

tasks

On September 21, 1992, the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China approved the manned space program, named after the date as "Project 921" (921 工程, Pinyin 921 Gōngchéng ). At that time, the entire program was divided into seven (now 14) task areas, so-called "systems" (系统). The Research Institute for Space Medicine and Technology was and is on the one hand responsible for the space travel system (航天 员 系统, Pinyin Hángtiānyuán Xìtǒng ), whereby its tasks are as follows:

  • Creation of a space corps
  • For each mission, the selection of the most suitable spacemen from the corps for this mission and their training for said mission
  • Development of technologies to ensure the health of space travelers under the special conditions of space flight
  • Development of technologies to ensure safe spacecraft operations
  • Assessment of spacecraft for their suitability for the transport and accommodation of people from a medical and ergonomic point of view
  • Development and manufacture of medical telemetry systems for use in orbit
  • Research into the physiological changes in humans under the special conditions of space
  • Development of advanced life support systems
  • Increasing the work efficiency of people in space

The Chinese Academy of Space Technology , a subsidiary of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation , is responsible for the spaceship system (载人 飞船 系统, Pinyin Zàirén Fēichuán Xìtǒng ), i.e. the development and construction of the Shenzhou spaceships . However, the Research Institute for Space Medicine and Technology - renamed the "Chinese Astronaut Training Center " in 2005 - supports the company with the subsystem for environmental control and life support (环境 控制 与 生命 保障 分系统), i.e. cabin temperature, oxygen content in the air, water treatment, waste treatment, etc.

When the Commission for Defense Technology of the People's Liberation Army merged on May 10, 1982 with the Office for Defense Industry at the State Council and the Commission for Scientific and Technical Equipment at the Central Military Commission to form the Commission for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense , the then research institute remained for Space medicine and technology initially with the new Defense Technology Commission. When the main witness office of the People's Liberation Army was set up in 1998 , the research institute moved to the new office together with the Space Corps of the People's Liberation Army founded on January 5, 1998 . On January 1, 2016, the far-reaching reform of national defense and the military came into force, and the astronaut center was initially subordinated to the Central Military Commission's Weapons Development Department together with the Space Corps . In a further restructuring in the first half of 2017, the space corps moved to the Space Department of the Strategic Combat Support Force , while the Astronaut Center remained with the Weapons Development Department.

The first group of 14 astronauts selected for the Space Corps by the Research Institute for Space Medicine and Technology in 1997 were interceptor and fighter-bomber pilots with at least 600 hours of flight time. The same applies to the seven other spacemen (including two women) who were recruited in 2010. However, the requirements were scaled down during the selection process for 17 to 18 additional space travelers, which began on April 23, 2018. Since the crew for the planned modular space station is selected from this group , not only pilots of the Chinese Air Force , but also engineers and scientists from the space industry (i.e. from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and its subsidiaries), research institutes and universities are eligible as applicants assumed who should take care of the payloads on the space station.

In the 1970s, Soviet scientists had found that the accumulation of body fluids in the head and muscle wasting in the legs during long stays in weightlessness can be simulated by letting test subjects lie on a bed inclined 6 ° backwards. 2007, during the preparations for the Tiangong - space laboratory , the China Astronaut Center conducted under the name "Earth Star I" (地星一号) after preliminary tests at 30 and 45 days for men and 15 days for women the first large-scale test 60 Days through. The longest stay of Chinese astronauts in space to date is just over a month, during the flight from Shenzhou 11 to the Tiangong 2 space laboratory in October / November 2016. However, stays of up to 180 days are planned for the new space station. The Astronaut Center therefore carried out the “Earth Star II” experiment from July to October 2019, in which 36 male test subjects had to remain in a 6 ° head-down tilt position for 90 days while they were under The supervision of 22 scientists trained the leg muscles on all types of equipment and were otherwise subject to constant monitoring. The experiment was followed by a 33-day observation phase, during which it was documented how the test subjects recovered from the simulated stay in space.

In order to make spacecraft and payloads as easy and energy-saving as possible to operate, the astronaut training center has its own " Ergonomics Expert Group " (工效 学 专家组), which is largely made up of external experts and reports directly to the manned space flight office. In preparation for the modular space station and a manned moon landing, this group of experts was recruited on November 27, 2019. The group of experts was chaired by Huang Weifen (黄伟芬, * 1965), head of astronaut selection and training, plus professors from Tsinghua University , the Pedagogical Capital University (首都 师范大学), and Beijing Jiaotong University (北京 交通 大学), the University of Southeast China , Zhejiang University of Technology , the Chinese Academy of Sciences , the Shanghai Academy of Space Technology , the China General Nuclear Power Group , experienced astronauts Liu Wang and Wang Yaping, and space medicine doctor Wang Chunhui (王春慧) from the center itself.

Teaching

In 1985, the Research Institute of Aerospace Medicine and Technology was granted the right to admit students and to award engineering degrees, as well as to take state medical exams, by the Academic Degrees Commission of the State Council of the People's Republic of China (国务院 学位 委员会, now part of the Ministry of Education ) . After the start of the manned space program in 1992 , a new building complex was built in the second half of the 1990s in the space city (航天城, Pinyin Hángtiān Chéng ) in the very north of the Haidian district , a few hundred meters southwest of the Beijing Space Control Center . In addition to simulators and training equipment, there is a national laboratory for basic and applied space medicine, a laboratory for ergonomics and 14 other laboratories as well as a library with 120,000 books and magazines. Almost a hundred lecturers are authorized to supervise diploma theses. Currently (2019) the University of the Astronaut Center has two departments - engineering and medicine - each of which offers several courses:

engineering

  • Life support systems I (cabin pressure, waste treatment, fire extinguishing systems, etc.)
  • Life support systems II (materials research, noise protection, pressure beds, etc.)
  • Spaceman selection and training (physical tests, psychological tests, operation of complicated devices, etc.)
  • Space flight simulation (training space travelers on real devices and in computer simulations)
  • Space ergonomics (interaction between people, machines and the environment, measurement and evaluation of work efficiency, etc.)
  • Medical engineering (measurement, transmission and processing of biomedical indicators)
  • Space food (development, production and quality control of high-energy space food, microorganisms in space food, etc.)
  • Space suits (theory and practice of cabin suits and EVA suits, material, temperature control, etc.)
  • Space simulation (acceleration at takeoff, weightlessness, vibration, pressure loss, etc.)

medicine

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 徐晶慧: 中国 "航天 员 科研 训练 中心" 创新 发展 纪实. In: sci.ce.cn. March 11, 2010, Retrieved August 18, 2019 (Chinese).
  2. ↑ 李国利 、 朱 霄 雄: 中国 航天 员 中心 实现 载人 航天 飞行 ９ 类 关键 技术 重大 突破. In: xinhuanet.com. March 30, 2018, Retrieved August 18, 2019 (Chinese).
  3. ↑ Ryan S. Park: 35313 Hangtianyuan (1997 AC6). In: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov. March 26, 2008, accessed August 19, 2019 .
  4. ↑ 贝 时 璋 院士 ： 开展 宇宙 生物学 研究. In: tech.sina.com.cn. November 15, 2006, Retrieved September 25, 2019 (Chinese).
  5. ↑ T-7A in the Encyclopedia Astronautica , accessed on September 25, 2019 (English).
  6. ↑ 李鸣生: 千古 一 梦 - 中国 人 第 一次 离开 地球 的 故事.天地 出版社, 北京 2016.
  7. ↑ Shuguang 1 in the Encyclopedia Astronautica , accessed August 17, 2019.
  8. ↑ 刘炳峰: 毛泽东 与 中国 “载人 航天” 事业 的 起步. In: calt.spacechina.com. June 14, 2016, Retrieved August 17, 2019 (Chinese).
  9. ^ National High-tech R&D Program (863 Program). In: most.gov.cn. Retrieved August 17, 2019 .
  10. ↑ 佚名: 中国 航天 大事记: 携带 高等 动物 的 首次 卫星 飞行 试验. In: taikongmedia.com. August 10, 2017, accessed August 17, 2019 (Chinese).
  11. ↑ 中国 载人 航天 工程 简介. In: cmse.gov.cn. April 23, 2011, Retrieved August 18, 2019 (Chinese).
  12. ↑ 吴耀谦: 中国 载人 航天 工程 办公室 换帅 ， 余 同 杰 接棒 王兆耀. In: thepaper.cn. March 31, 2015, accessed January 17, 2019 (Chinese).
  13. ↑ 系统 组成. In: cmse.gov.cn. Retrieved August 18, 2019 (Chinese).
  14. ↑ 航天 员 系统. In: cmse.gov.cn. Retrieved August 18, 2019 (Chinese).
  15. ↑ 载人 飞船 系统. In: cmse.gov.cn. Retrieved August 18, 2019 (Chinese).
  16. ↑ 张琦: 飞船 的 结构 与 系统 组成. In: cmse.gov.cn. September 9, 2015, accessed August 18, 2019 (Chinese).
  17. ↑ 任 涛: 记 中国人民解放军 航天 员 大队 航天 员 兼 教练 李庆龙. In: people.com.cn. January 23, 2004, accessed August 18, 2019 (Chinese).
  18. ↑ 苏永生: 自治区 慰问 团 到 总装备部 航天 员 训练 中心 慰问. In: northnews.cn. December 15, 2012, Retrieved August 18, 2019 (Chinese).
  19. ↑ 王东明: 十个 关键词 带 你 读懂 “八一 勋章”. In: xinhuanet.com. July 28, 2017, Retrieved August 18, 2019 (Chinese).
  20. ↑ XinhuaChinese: 八一 勋章. In: twitter.com. July 28, 2017, Retrieved August 18, 2019 (Chinese).
  21. ↑ 张琦: 我国 航天 员 是 如何 选拔 的？ In: cmse.gov.cn. September 17, 2015, accessed August 20, 2019 (Chinese).
  22. ↑ Peng Ying: China starts new astronaut selection process. In: xinhuanet.com. April 23, 2018, accessed August 20, 2019 .
  23. ↑ Benny Elmann-Larsen: Long-term bed rest study: second period 22 March - 27 July 2002. In: esa.int. April 12, 2002, accessed October 25, 2019 .
  24. ↑ 李莹辉 、 曲 丽娜 、 许 梓: 航天 引力？ 航天 失重？ 为什么 ”地 星 二号” 科研 人员 90 天内 连续 保持 头 低 脚 高 （-6 °）？ In: zhuanlan.zhihu.com. October 22, 2019, Retrieved October 25, 2019 (Chinese).
  25. ↑ 丁柏 、 许 梓: 90 天 36 人！ 一项 新 纪录 诞生. In: cmse.gov.cn. October 18, 2019, accessed October 25, 2019 (Chinese).
  26. ↑ 航天 员 女 教头 黄伟芬 ： 一个 人 要 经历 多少 考验 ， 才能 成为 航天 员？ In: guokr.com. December 15, 2018, accessed December 3, 2019 (Chinese).
  27. ↑ 王春慧. In: cdw.cnki.net. Retrieved December 3, 2019 (Chinese).
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Coordinates: 40 ° 4 ′ 2.9 ″  N , 116 ° 15 ′ 18.9 ″  E