Jiuquan Cosmodrome

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Coordinates: 40 ° 57 ′ 25 ″  N , 100 ° 17 ′ 32 ″  E

Spacecraft assembly building of the Jiuquan Cosmodrome (2007)
Jiuquan Cosmodrome (China)
Jiuquan
Jiuquan
Taiyuan
Taiyuan
Xichang
Xichang
Wenchang
Wenchang
Cosmodrome in the People's Republic of China

The Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center ( Chinese  酒泉衛星發射中心  /  酒泉卫星发射中心 , Pinyin Jiǔquán Wèixīngfāshèzhōngxīn ), also known as "20th base of the Chinese People's Liberation Army for testing and training" (中国人民解放军第二十试验训练基地, Pinyin Zhongguo Rénmín Jiefangjun Dì Èrshí Shìyàn Xùnliàn Jīdì ), short "Base 20" (第 20 基地), is the oldest and largest spaceport in the People's Republic of China . It is located in a remote and sparsely populated region in the Gobi Desert about 200 km northeast of the city of Jiuquan in the Ejin banner of the Alxa - Federation of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region , about 1600 km from Beijing .

Naming

The somewhat misleading name of the cosmodrome has historical reasons. The Ejin banner had belonged to Ningxia Province since 1928 . The Northwest Army (西北 野战军, Pinyin Xīběi Yězhànjūn ) under the leadership of Peng Dehuai liberated the area from the Kuomintang in 1948 , after which the banner came to the then provincial district (专区, Pinyin Zhuānqū ) Jiuquan, who from 1950 on the Military and Administrative Council of Northwest China (西北 军政 委员会, Pinyin Xīběi Jūnzhèng Wěiyuánhuì ) was sheltered . When part of the Alxa Federation came to Inner Mongolia in July 1969, the Ejin banner initially stayed with Jiuquan, in Gansu Province . It was not until the administrative reform on July 1, 1979 that the banner came to Inner Mongolia. The cosmodrome is actually in the area of Sum Guranai, today's large community of Dongfeng (东风 镇, ie "east wind"), but although the end of the Cold War and the improved satellite reconnaissance the reason for secrecy has become superfluous, the old one is now permanently naturalized name remained.

Military use

In the end, China owes its Jiuquan cosmodrome to Joseph McCarthy . The rocket scientist Qian Xuesen , professor at the California Institute of Technology , was placed under house arrest in Pasadena on April 26, 1951 on suspicion of communism and was only able to leave for China in September 1955 through the intermediary of Zhou Enlai . On August 6, 1956, Defense Minister Peng Dehuai opened the so-called "Fifth Bureau" (第五 局, Pinyin Dìwǔ Jú ) under the direction of Zhong at the headquarters of his ministry, the Three Gates of Honor Building at 20 Front Jingshan Street , Beijing Fuxiang (钟 夫 翔, 1911–1992), with Prof. Qian Xuesen as chief engineer. On October 8, 1956, the "5th Research Institute of the Ministry of Defense" (国防部 第五 研究院, Pinyin Guófángbù Dìwǔ Yánjiūyuàn ) was founded in Beijing , which in March 1957 took over the staff of the Fifth Bureau. Qian Xuesen became head of the institute, which dealt with the development of the Chinese atomic bomb .

The first Chinese atomic bombs were designed to be dropped from medium-range bombers. In order to bring them safely to their destination, powerful launchers were necessary. Qian Xuesen was one of the co-founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1936 and, as an expert, questioned Wernher von Braun about the Peenemünde Army Research Center in 1945, while still in Germany . So he had a pretty good idea of ​​what it would take to develop such a long-range missile. During the summer of 1957, he and his colleagues from the 5th Research Institute worked out a "draft of a plan for the construction of a rocket firing range with a test area" (关于 建设 导弹 靶场 和 试验场 的 规划; 草案), which they submitted to the Central Military Commission for assessment. The ZMK, under the leadership of Mao Zedong , decided to initiate the establishment of such a multi-purpose site immediately.

First of all, a "Commission for the Preparation of the Construction of a Firing Range" (靶场 筹建 委员会, Pinyin Bǎchǎng Chóujiàn Wěiyuánhuì ) was founded on September 5, 1957 , with Lieutenant General Qiu Chuangcheng (邱 创 成, 1912–1982, Political Commissar of the Artillery) as chairman and general Zhang Tingfa (张廷 发, 1912–2010, Air Force), Major General Chen Wenbiao (陈文彪, 1910–1962, deputy head of the witness office at the General Staff) and Major General Liu Bingyan (刘秉彦, 1915–1998, 5th Research Institute) as his deputies. Three weeks later, on September 25, 1957, on the instructions of Defense Minister Peng Dehuai , a " firing range preparation facility" was opened at the Artillery Headquarters (炮兵 司令部 大院, Pinyin Pàobīing Sīlìngbù Dàyuàn ), Fuxing Street, the corner of Shawo Street , Beijing Office "(靶场 筹备 处, Pinyin Bǎchǎng Chóubèichù ) was set up, which was given the designation" Unit 0029 "(0029 部队, Pinyin 0029 Bùdùi ) for internal use . Major General Zhang Yixiang (张 贻 祥, 1909–1999), commander of the Baicheng Firing and Weapon Testing Area, should become the head of the office, supported by Colonel Colonel (大校) Lü Lin (吕琳, 1914–2009), Political Commissar of the 21st Missile Artillery - Division of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army in North Korea. Even before Zhang Yixiang arrived in Beijing at the end of 1957, concrete planning began.

As early as April 24, 1957, Deputy Prime Minister Nie Rongzhen had pointed out that outside help would be needed for the development of missile technology. On September 7, 1957, a delegation under his leadership and nine experts in industry and aviation, including Qian Xuesen, traveled to the Soviet Union and negotiated there on issues of technology transfer. On October 15, 1957, Vice-Prime Minister Nie and Mikhail Georgievich Pervukhin , Vice-Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR , signed the "Agreement between the Chinese Government and the Government of the Soviet Union on the Manufacture of Novel Arms and Military Equipment and the Development of a Comprehensive Nuclear Industry in China". On the basis of this agreement, a group of Soviet experts, led by Major General Lev Mikhailovich Gaidukov (1911–1999), arrived in Beijing on December 30, 1957 to assist China in setting up the missile test site.

The Convention of October 15, 1957 stipulated that China and the Soviet Union should jointly determine the location of the test site. The choice for this was limited by the 1,000 km range of the MGM-1 Matador cruise missiles, which the USA had stationed on the Taiwanese air force base in Tainan in May 1957 and which had been equipped with W5 nuclear warheads since November 1957. The entire area between the canton and Shanghai was eliminated from the start. The firing range preparation office had already made a preselection of possible locations in Inner Mongolia. After the New Year of 1958, office manager Zhang Yixiang and the Soviet experts flew over the planned area from Hailar and Solon to Ulanhad and Eren Hot .

The places mentioned were in the east of Inner Mongolia, within reach of Major General Zhang's old location Baicheng , and had good transport links. For security reasons, however, it was decided to set up the rocket firing range in the sparsely populated west of the region. A military base for several thousand people could not be set in the middle of the Gobi desert due to the need for drinking, industrial and extinguishing water. In the area of ​​the Ejin banner , on the lower reaches of the Heihe , a place was found that was on the one hand remote, but on the other hand could be reached relatively cheaply from the Soviet Union via the Shivee Khuren border crossing and Mongolia and supplied with technical equipment.

Sun Jixian, commander of the cosmodrome from 1958 to 1962

In March 1958, the headquarters of the 20th Corps of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army, along with the Political Department and some of the crews, were ordered back from North Korea under the greatest possible secrecy; the deputy corps commander Sun Jixian (孙继 先, 1911–1990) had already returned to China in October 1957. On March 27, 1958, the "Chinese Multipurpose Test Base for Missiles; Firing Range" (中国 导弹 综合 试验 基地; 靶场) was officially established in Beijing. The unit stationed there under the command of Lieutenant General Sun Jixian was named "20. Corps of the Chinese People's Liberation Army "(中国人民解放军 第二十 兵团, Pinyin Zhōnggúo Rénmín Jiěfàngjūn Dì Èrshí Bīngtuán ), d. H. the semi-legal shadow army from the Korean War was transferred to the regular armed forces of the People's Republic of China. On October 20, 1958, six months after the start of construction on April 11, 1958, the test site in the Gobi Desert was named "20th Training Base of the Chinese People's Liberation Army" (中国人民解放军 第二十 训练 基地, Pinyin Zhōnggúo Rénmín Jiěfàngjūn Dì Èrshí Xùnliàn Jīdì ). The name "20th Corps" has not been used since then, while the slang term "Basis 20" is still in use today.

Under the guidance of the Soviet experts, the expansion of the missile test site was progressing well, with the equipment and technology at the Kapustin Yar test site and the Baikonur cosmodrome , from where the Soviet Union launched the world's first ICBM on August 21, 1957 . In November 1958, commander Sun Jixian commissioned the VBA film studio (八一 电影 制片厂, Pinyin Bāyī Diànyǐng Zhìpiànchǎng ) to form a squad from soldiers from the base and local high school graduates to document the construction progress.

However, the project then suffered a severe setback. When the Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Sergejewitsch Khrushchev and Defense Minister Rodion Jakowlewitsch Malinovsky were on a secret visit to Beijing on July 31, 1958 to discuss further military cooperation, there was a serious dispute with Mao Zedong , who viewed this as an attack valued Chinese sovereignty. Khrushchev initially returned to Moscow without comment, but then announced on June 20, 1959 that the Soviet Union would withdraw from the 1957 Technology Transfer Agreement, allegedly because it was negotiating a nuclear test ban agreement with Great Britain and the United States. On July 16, 1960, Khrushchev informed the People's Republic of China that all Soviet experts would be recalled. By the end of August 1960, all 1,390 men and women had left the country.

China's first rocket, known as "Dongfeng 1" from 1964

At that point, Qian Xuesen was well advanced in his work on the first Chinese missile, a copy of the Soviet R-2 short-range missile . For its part, the R-2 was based on the German V2 - Lev Gaidukov had been Qian Xuesen's opponent in the skimming off of German missile technology in 1945 - and so he was familiar with the design principle from the outset. On November 5, 1960, the 17.68 m high rocket, which with a fueled takeoff weight of 40.4 t could carry a payload of 1.3 t a good 500 km, was launched from Base 20 in the presence of Vice Premier Nie Rongzhen and Qian Xuesen. The rocket launched from a mobile launch pad was initially called "1059", ie - in Russian date format - "October 1959", the time when Nie Rongzhen commissioned the 5th research institute after the Soviet Union withdrew from the technology transfer agreement to stop wasting time with in-house developments and concentrate on copying the Soviet R-2. It was not until September 12, 1964 that the short-range missile was given the name "Ostwind 1" or "Dongfeng 1" (东风 1).

Until January 1962, the Kosmodrom was subordinate to the People's Liberation Army, then directly to the 5th Research Institute of the Ministry of Defense. Lt. General Sun Jixian was promoted to deputy head of the institute. His successor as site commander was Major General Li Fuze (李福泽, 1914-1996) appointed, who had been Sun Jixian's deputy since October 1958. A good two years later, responsibility for the cosmodrome was transferred to the “ Commission of the Chinese People's Liberation Army for Science and Technology in National Defense ”, which emerged on October 16, 1958 from the “Commission for the Aviation Industry at the Ministry of Defense” and, like its predecessor organization , chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Nie Rongzhen, who has coordinated all missile and nuclear weapons-related activities since February 15, 1958.

The latter was quite successful: on October 16, 1964, the first Chinese atomic bomb detonated at the Lop Nor nuclear weapons test site . This was still designed for the dropping of aircraft, but the 5th Research Institute had been working on a missile inspired by the Soviet R-12 medium-range missile since 1959 . The first take-off on March 21, 1962 was successful, but after only 69 seconds of flight time the rocket got out of control and hit the desert. The missile was designed from scratch and the second attempt on June 29, 1964 was successful. The rocket, called "Dongfeng 2A" from September 12, 1964, was 20.61 m high and with a fueled take-off weight of 31.9 t could transport a payload of up to 1.5 t a good 1000 km, from China for example - as given as a target at a meeting that day - to carry a nuclear warhead to Japan to hit the US bases there or to avenge the Nanking massacre . This was demonstrated on October 27, 1966 when a Dongfeng 2A carried a 1.2 ton warhead with an explosive force of 12 kT from the Jiuquan Cosmodrome over 800 km to the Lop Nor nuclear weapons test site, where it detonated exactly at the target in the atmosphere. At the start, Vice Premier Nie Rongzhen and Qian Xuesen were again personally present.

Not only Japan felt threatened by the Chinese missile program, but also the USSR, especially after armed clashes between the two countries broke out in 1969 on the border river Ussuri and at the Djungarian gate . Faced with these growing tensions - at the height of the crisis in September 1969 the Soviet Union was considering a nuclear first strike - Defense Minister Lin Biao issued "Order No. 1" on October 18, 1969 (林 副 统帅 一号 战斗 号令, Pinyin Lín Fùtǒngshuài Yīhào Zhàndòu Hàolìng ), with which the entire armed forces of the country were put on high alert. The pioneers stationed on the cosmodrome moved out and for more than two months laid tunnel systems and one-man caves in the mountains north of the site, from which an artillery-supported infantry attack feared at this point should be responded to.

Even then, Lin Biao had ordered that all military units should be widely dispersed. After a long planning phase, several departments were finally detached from the Jiuquan Cosmodrome in September 1975 and relocated to the south, away from the border:

  • Testing Department 5 (第五 试验 部, Pinyin Dì Wǔ Shìyànbù ) -> 25th base of the Chinese People's Liberation Army for testing and training, Kelan (today " Cosmodrome Taiyuan ")
  • Testing Department 6 (第六 试验 部, Pinyin Dì Liù Shìyànbù ) -> 26. Base of the Chinese People's Liberation Army for testing and training, Qiaonan (today " Satellite Control Center Xi'an ")
  • Work area 7 (第七 工区, Pinyin Dì Qī Gōngqū ) -> 27. Base of the Chinese People's Liberation Army for testing and training, Mianning (today " Cosmodrome Xichang ")

Civil use

In addition to the military missiles of the Ostwind series - the latest model is the Dongfeng 5C ICBM with 10 individually programmable warheads , which was successfully launched in January 2017 from the Taiyuan Cosmodrome - China also operates a civil space program for the launchers with the collective name " Long March " ( 长征 , Pinyin Chángzhēng ) can be used. In January 1965, Qian Xuesen proposed to the Defense Technology Commission of the People's Liberation Army that a satellite be sent into space. Commission chairman Nie Rongzhen and Prime Minister Zhou Enlai approved Qian's plan, which was given the name "Project 651" (651 工程, Pinyin 651 Gōngchéng ), ie "The project started in January 1965". In addition to the satellite itself, work began in the second half of 1965 on a three-stage launcher, the Changzheng 1 , based on the Dongfeng 3 , the first fully self-developed medium-range missile in the People's Republic of China, which should be able to do this Put satellites into near-earth orbit.

This turned out to be extremely difficult because of the cultural revolution that broke out in early summer 1966 . On June 10, 1968, revolutionary rebels (造反 派, Pinyin Zàofǎn Pài ) from the Equipment Research Institute (设备 研究所, Pinyin Shèbèi Yánjiūsuǒ ) incited several hundred shepherds etc. from the area and together with them attacked the pioneer regiment stationed on the cosmodrome , surrounded their accommodations and "arrested" regimental commander Sun Peisheng (孙培生). The pioneers moved out with two companies and freed their commander, whereupon the revolutionary rebels devastated the administration building of the regiment. The clashes dragged on for more than a month. At this point there were no nuclear warheads stored on the cosmodrome, but serious work was no longer possible. After an initial false start on November 16, 1969, however, on April 24, 1970, China's first satellite, Dong Fang Hong I (东方 红, meaning " The East is Red "), was launched into space from the Jiuquan Cosmos.

As early as August 1965, Qian Xuesen had designed the "Three Satellite Plan" (三星 规划, Pinyin Sān Xīng Guīhuà ):

  1. Dong Fang Hong I.
  2. Satellite returning to Earth
  3. Communications satellite in geostationary orbit

In parallel with the work on the satellite, which the Defense Technology Commission named Dong Fang Hong I in May 1966, the Chinese Academy of Sciences began developing a satellite in August 1965 that could return to Earth unscathed. Qian Xuesen himself had been ousted to a certain extent during the Cultural Revolution on January 23, 1967, but work on the project, initially known as the "Chinese Return Satellite" (中国 返回 式 卫星, Pinyin Zhōngguó Fǎnhuí Shì Wèixīng ), was ongoing Continue breastfeeding. Even then, Qian had seen the return capsule as the first step towards manned spaceflight, but Zhou Enlai had forbidden the scientists from entering a space race with the Soviet Union and the US and ordered that they should instead focus on developing satellites for were useful in building the country.

So the satellites known as "pioneers" (尖兵, Pinyin Jiānbīng ) were equipped with a camera and used for military and civil remote sensing. When it was first launched with a Changzheng 2 rocket on November 5, 1974, the satellite did not yet reach orbit, but the second attempt on November 26, 1975 succeeded. Groundbreaker 1-1, known as FSW-0-1 for civilian use, landed three days later on November 29, 1975 in the Yingpan People's Commune (营盘 公社) in the Liuzhi Special Area of Guizhou Province . Between 1975 and 2005, a total of 22 satellites of the pioneering series were launched from the Jiuquan Cosmodrome, all of which - with one exception in 1993 - returned safely to Earth.

On May 19, 1974, Zhou Enlai had commissioned three young employees of the 1998 dissolved Ministry of Post and Telecommunications (邮电 部, Pinyin Yóudiàn Bù ) to start planning a geostationary communications satellite. The draft of this plan was submitted to the Central Military Commission for discussion on March 30, 1975. The following day, Mao Zedong, the chairman of the ZMK, decided on the spot to approve the plan. Therefore the undertaking was initially called "Project 331". These satellites, later called Dong Fang Hong II, were all launched from the Xichang Cosmodrome in Sichuan on January 29, 1984 .

Overall, however, the Jiuquan Cosmodrome, the first of the four space stations in the People's Republic of China, carried out more rocket launches than any other launch site in China. This is due, among other things, to the favorable climatic conditions in the Gobi Desert. The relative humidity at the launch site is 35% -55%; it only rains occasionally in summer, and rows of poplars were planted as a protective wall against sandstorms in June 1958, so that rocket launches are possible on average 300 days a year. Therefore, and because of the very few false starts, the Chinese government approved, as part of Deng Xiaoping's reform and opening up policy, on October 26, 1985, to offer commercial satellite launches with Changzheng 2 and Changzheng 3 launch vehicles on the national and international market . Since then, the name 中国 酒泉 卫星 发射 中心 or "Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center" has been used for the external presentation. However, it took another two years before the French Matra group was able to acquire the first foreign customer. On August 5, 1987, a Changzheng 2C launcher was used to launch the return satellite pioneering 1-9 from Jiuquan, which carried out microgravity experiments for five days for the then Ministry of the Aviation Industry and returned safely to Earth on August 10, 1987.

The Jiuquan Cosmodrome is usually used to launch satellites into lower and medium orbits, but also to test medium and long-range missiles. On May 18, 1980, the first Chinese ICBM Dongfeng 5A (东风 -5 甲) was successfully launched from there. After a flight time of 29 minutes and 57 seconds, it hit the target area in the Pacific Ocean 9070 km further east (depending on the payload, the actual range of this rocket is 13,000 to 15,000 km).

Emblem of the Strategic Combat Support Force

Organizationally, since July 1982 the cosmodrome has belonged to the Commission for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense that emerged on May 10, 1982 from the " Commission for Defense Technology of the People's Liberation Army " and two other authorities . When the main witness office of the Chinese People's Liberation Army was founded in April 1998 , the cosmodrome came under this authority. With the military reform that came into force on January 1, 2016, the main witness office was dissolved, and since then the Jiuquan cosmodrome with its 2800 km² and all 20,000 people who live there has been subordinate to the main department for satellite launches, orbit tracking and control (中国 卫星 发射 测控 系统 部) the Strategic Combat Support Force , the 5th branch of the People's Liberation Army , which was commissioned that day .

The Space Systems Department mainly deals with reconnaissance and communication satellites and the supervision of the Beidou satellite navigation system , which is subordinate to the Joint General Staff at the Central Military Commission , but also the space corps of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (中国人民解放军 航天 员 大队, founded on January 5, 1998) Pinyin Zhōnggúo Rénmín Jiěfàngjūn Hángtiānyuán Dàduì ) has been subordinate to this department since January 1, 2016 (previously the main witness office of the People's Liberation Army). The return satellites of the "pioneer" type, which have been continuously improved since 1975, can already be seen as the first steps towards manned space travel. In 1992, development of the Changzheng 2F began on the basis of the Changzheng 2E , the first, error-prone launcher with additional boosters . Since the project began in January of that year, the manned space program of China is also known as "Project 921" (921 工程, Pinyin 921 Gōngchéng ). In order to launch the 58.34 m high rocket, the pioneers stationed at the cosmodrome - some of the sons and daughters of the Korean fighters from 1958 - laid southeast of the Heihe , which is also called "Ruoshui" by the local population because of its only sporadic water flow. (弱水), so called "Weak River", a new launch pad was set up in the years 1994 to 1998, the so-called "Launch pad 91" (91 号 发射 阵地, Pinyin 91 Hào Fāshè Zhèndì ). From 1996, built the state-owned heavy machinery factory Taiyuan (太原重型机械厂, Pinyin Taiyuan Zhongxing Jixie Chǎng today太重集团) to the engineering and planning office (工程设计研究院) of the former Committee for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense designed plans a 105.52 m high and 2300 t heavy supply tower, which was installed on the launch pad in December 1997.

The Jiuquan Cosmodrome (2007)

About 1.5 km northwest of the launch pad built the 8th engineering office (中国 建筑 第八 工程 局, Pinyin Zhōnggúo Jiànzhù Dì Bā Gōngchéngjú ), originally a pioneer unit and since 1983 a subsidiary of China State Construction Engineering , under the name "Project 920- 520 "is a 86.1 m high spacecraft assembly building that contains two halls for the final assembly of the rockets, each with a floor area of ​​26.8 × 28 m and a clearance height of 81.6 m (see the picture above). Since the cosmodrome is a primary goal in the event of a conflict, the building was made very massive, with a 13,000 t concrete ceiling. In order to rule out problems with the dust that is constantly floating in the air in the Gobi desert, the building is fully air-conditioned, like a clean room .

Two landing sites have been designated for the return of the space travelers. The main landing site is around 1700 km east of the cosmodrome, in the area of ​​the Dörbed banner , around 80 km north of Hohhot and can be easily reached from there via the 101 provincial road. The reserve landing site, also known as the "Ostwind landing site" (东风 着陆 场, Pinyin Dōngfēng Zhuólùchǎng ), is located in the Badain-Jaran desert south of the cosmodrome. Since this place has an uneven terrain with high sand dunes and oasis lakes, only the main landing site has been used for manned space flights, with teams stationed at the reserve landing site only in the event of a sudden change in weather. However, when China tested the first model of a new multi-purpose return capsule (without a crew) with a Changzheng 7 launcher launched from the Wenchang Cosmodrome on the island of Hainan in June 2016 , it landed as planned on June 26, 2016 at 3:41 pm Local time on the Ostwind landing site.

The actual start of manned space travel in China can be dated to November 20, 1999, when a Changzheng 2F launcher with the later known as " Shenzhou 1 " (神舟 一号, Pinyin Shénzhōu Yīhào , "godship") arrived at 06:30 local time Play on words with the equally pronounced 神州, "China") well-known spaceship, as yet without a crew, took off from launch pad 91. On January 10, 2001, Shenzhou 2 followed , where the life support systems were tested. Shenzhou 3 with a spaceman dummy took off on March 25, 2002, and Shenzhou 4 was the last unmanned test flight on September 30, 2002 . On October 15, 2003 at 9:00 am local time, Yang Liwei, the first Chinese astronaut with Shenzhou 5, took off into orbit. Five more manned missions and an unmanned test flight followed by 2016. All of these spaceships took off from launch pad 91 and landed on the main landing pad north of Hohhot. In addition, a Changzheng 2F with the first Chinese space laboratory Tiangong 1 started on September 29, 2011 at 9:16 pm local time , and the Tiangong 2 space laboratory on September 15, 2016 at 10:04 pm, also with a Changzheng 2F .

On November 2, 2003, an additional launch pad was put into operation with launch pad 94, also on the southern launch site. So far, however, this has not been used for manned space travel, but only for satellite launches with launch vehicles of the Changzheng 2C and Changzheng 2D and Changzheng 4B and Changzheng 4C types . On September 25, 2015, the first flight of the Changzheng 11 solid fuel rocket took place from this launch pad , for which a third launch pad has been available since November 9, 2016, also on the southern area.

Transport links

High-ranking personalities have been able to use the airport of the "Air Force Testing and Training Base of the Chinese People's Liberation Army" (中国人民解放军 空军 试验 训练 基地) in Dingxin (鼎新 镇), about 100 km south of the cosmodrome, since 1959 . In the summer of 1960, the Lanzhou - Xinjiang railway (construction started in 1952) to Jiuquan was opened to traffic. The journey from Beijing took 4 to 5 days back then, now 33 hours with the express train. The cosmodrome can be reached from Jiuquan by car, first on provincial road 214 to the north, then on municipal road 440 to the southeast to Dingxin , and finally on the Hangtian, i.e. space road, north along the Heihe river to Gate of the plant. For the almost 250 km you normally need a good 5 hours.

See also

Web links

Commons : Jiuquan Cosmodrome  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • 梁 东 元: 额济纳 笔记.北京, 国际 文化 出版 公司 1959.
  • 梁 东 元: 天啸.北京, 作家 出版社 1997.
  • 梁 东 元: 原子弹 调查.北京, 解放军 出版社 2005.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 谭 其 骧 （主编）: 简明 中国 历史 地图集.中国 地图 出版社 ， 北京 1996 （第二 次 印刷）, map 71–72.
  2. ↑ In 2007, in a television series filmed together with the 2nd Artillery Corps, the name of the Heihe River was changed to "Yinma He" at the base of the early days , which is 4000 km further east in Jilin Province : 天啸 "The sky roars ". In: cntv.cn/. July 1, 2008, accessed December 6, 2018 (Chinese).
  3. ↑ 梅世雄 、 毛 俊: 第 一个 导弹 火箭 研究 机构 —— 国防部 五 院 ： 中国 航天 梦 的 起点. In: xinhuanet.com/. July 10, 2016, accessed December 2, 2018 (Chinese).
  4. ↑ Mao's Big Bomb - Chinese Atomic Salute for the Changing of the Guard in Moscow. In: zeit.de/. October 23, 1964. Retrieved December 2, 2018 .
  5. ↑ 梁 东 元: 彭德怀 点将 筹建 导弹 发射场. In: chinawriter.com.cn/. January 9, 2007, accessed December 2, 2018 (Chinese).
  6. ↑ 王新玲: 吕琳 同志 逝世. In: people.com.cn/. April 11, 2009, Retrieved December 3, 2018 (Chinese).
  7. ^ Mori Kazuko: A Brief Analysis of the Sino-Soviet Alliance: The Political Process of 1957-1959. (PDF) In: Parallel History Project . Retrieved December 4, 2018 .
  8. ↑ 梁 东 元: 彭德怀 点将 筹建 导弹 发射场. In: chinawriter.com.cn/. January 9, 2007, accessed December 2, 2018 (Chinese).
  9. ↑ Mark Wade: Gaidukov, Lev Mikhailovich in the Encyclopedia Astronautica , accessed on December 24, 2018.
  10. ↑ Stephen Uhalley Jr .: A History of the Chinese Communist Party. Hoover Institution Press, Stanford 1988, p. 116.
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  12. ↑ 走进 中国 的 “51 区”. In: haribao.com. August 23, 2013, accessed December 18, 2018 (Chinese).
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  24. ↑ 记 新疆 生产 建设 兵团 原 政委 、 少将 王传友 同志. In: xj.ts.cn. June 25, 2014, Retrieved December 19, 2018 (Chinese).
  25. ↑ 记 新疆 生产 建设 兵团 原 政委 、 少将 王传友 同志. In: xj.ts.cn/. June 25, 2014, Retrieved December 10, 2018 (Chinese).
  26. ↑ 新年 第 1 枚 大 礼花！ 中国 成功 试射 10 弹头 洲际导弹. In: slide.mil.news.sina.com.cn/. February 1, 2017, accessed December 11, 2018 (Chinese).
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  36. ↑ 历史 上 的 今天 10 月 26 日. In: china.com.cn. Retrieved December 13, 2018 (Chinese). The Changzheng 3 , which was specially constructed for geostationary orbits, was then used - commercially from 1990 - only from the Xichang cosmodrome.
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  40. ↑ China Takes Bold Steps Toward Military Reform. In: worldview.stratfor.com. January 11, 2016, accessed December 15, 2018 .
  41. ↑ 邹维荣 、 高盛: 中国 四大 航天 发射场 你 想 了解 的 都 在 这里. In: 81.cn. July 20, 2016, accessed December 16, 2018 (Chinese).
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