Qiaonan
Qiaonan ( Chinese 橋南鎮 / 桥南镇 , Pinyin Qiaonan Zhen ) is a large village in the district Linwei the prefecture-level city Weinan in the Chinese province of Shaanxi . Located at the foot of the Qinling Mountains , the municipality has a population of almost 25,000 (2018) and covers an area of 145 km², of which 1667 hectares are arable land and 11,733 hectares are mountain forest.
Weinan ground station
From June 23, 1967, as part of the “ Project 651 ” in the south of the then Qiaonan People's Commune, on a ridge that climbs from the village of Shandi (底 村) to the main ridge of the Qinling Mountains, the so-called “Department of Satellite Geodesy ” (卫星地面 测量 部, Pinyin Wèixīng Dìmiàncèliáng Bù ), internally called “Unit 436 of the Chinese People's Liberation Army ” (中国人民解放军 436 部队, Pinyin Zhōnggúo Rénmín Jiěfàngjūn 436 Bùduì ). This term is misleading. Colonel Wang Shengyuan (王 盛 元, 1921–2012), the first commander of the unit, was a group leader in the anti-Japanese war , then a staff officer at the Secret Service of the 8th Army Corps (八路军 总部 特务 团, Pinyin Bālùjūn Zǒngbù Tèwùtuán ) and as such an expert in camouflage and deceiving .
Before he came to Qiaonan, he had actually been head of the map drawing office of the Office for Topography and Cartography at the General Staff (总参 测绘 局 地图 计划 供应 处, Pinyin Zǒngcān Cèhuìjú Dìtú Jìhuàgōngyìng Chù ) - the position someone came across during research - in truth, the station in the Qinling Mountains was a branch of the Jiuquan Cosmodrome and was supposed to monitor the trajectory of the propaganda satellite Dong Fang Hong I , which was under construction . China did not come to satellite geodesy until November 1975, and here, too, the task of the station in Qiaonan was only to monitor the trajectory and recover the return capsule with the photos taken from space. The evaluation was carried out by others, such as the State Bureau for Land Surveying, Cartography and Geoinformation (国家 测绘 地理 信息 局, Pinyin Guójiā Cèhuì Dìlǐ Xìnxī Jú ) founded in October 1956 or the Bureau for Cartography, which has been part of the Central Military Commission since January 1, 2016 , Meteorology and Hydrology (战场 环境 保障 局, Pinyin Zhànchǎng Huánjìng Bǎozhàng Jú ), Colonel Wang's old office.
In 1987 the headquarters of the satellite control center was relocated to the provincial capital Xi'an , but the station in Qiaonan is still an integral part of the Chinese space control network (中国 航天 测控 网, Pinyin Zhōnggúo Hángtiān Cèkòngwǎng ). The old shortwave antennas - Dong Fang Hong I transmitted on 20.009 MHz - have now been supplemented by parabolic antennas , with which the station makes a valuable contribution to orbit tracking, telemetry and control of the Chinese satellites in the C and S bands of the microwave range . Although the station is 30 km away from Weinan, it is still known today under the old camouflage name “Weinan ground station” (渭南 地面 观测 站, Pinyin Wèinán Dìmiàn Guāncè Zhàn ).
Space Control Equipment Museum
When a group of high-ranking officials toured the Xi'an satellite control center on October 14, 2009, the thought arose that a technology museum should be set up where the early computers and other equipment at the Weinan ground station could be made available to the public. The cadres met with open ears with this proposal. A few days later, Major General Dong Deyi (董德义), the then head of the Xi'an Control Center, and his Political Commissar, Major General Zhang Shengqin (张胜勤), began planning.
Since the old computer building, the telecommunications building and the generator building, internally referred to as "Building 101", "Building 102" and "Building 103" (101、102、103 大楼), were no longer needed after moving to Xi'an, it was decided Major General Dong to set up the museum there. A certain problem with this location was that the station was deliberately built in 1967 on a mountain ridge that was difficult to access, which was a disadvantage for a museum to which school classes were to be smuggled. The Weinan Road Construction Office (渭南 市 交通局, Pinyin Wèinánshì Jiāotōngjú ) built a road from Shandi up the mountain to the station free of charge.
The exhibition area of 10,000 m² is divided into 7 areas:
- Spacecraft monitoring and control equipment
- Telecommunications equipment
- Meteorological devices
- Equipment used in the recovery of return satellites
- Devices of the mobile spacecraft surveillance team
- Antennas
- Historical successes and teaching materials
Thanks to the support of other agencies such as the Kashgar ground station or the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation , the museum has almost 3,000 exhibits and 25,600 photos. The exhibition covers the entire history of Chinese space travel. There you can see the VHF transmitting and receiving systems that were used to control the early return satellites of the "Trailblazer 1" type (尖兵 一号, Pinyin Jiānbīng Yī Hào ), but also the C-band microwave system that is used in the determination of the correct position of the geostationary satellites was used. The Weinan ground station is still active in the latter area; the latest generation antenna can be seen in the center of the area on the slope north of the streets. The museum also has a parabolic antenna more than 10 m in size, which was used to monitor and remotely control the Chang'e-1 lunar probe from 2007-2009 , the return capsule of the manned Shenzhou 6 spacecraft , but above all computers of many generations. The second room in the “Spacecraft Monitoring and Control Devices” exhibition area is the old server room of the ground station, where the four heroic DJS-8 transistor computers, which the technicians in 1984 converted into a “one” , are still in their original location, awarded by then Defense Minister Zhang Aiping Mainframe Computer ” to check and correct the orbit of China's first geostationary satellite Dong Fang Hong II.
Opened 12 June 2010 aerospace control device Museum (航天测控装备博物馆, Pinyin Hángtiān Cèkòng Zhuāngbèi Bówùguǎn ) is an Exemplary specialized center for education in patriotism (爱国主义教育示范基地, Pinyin Aiguózhǔyì jiaoyu Shifan Jidi ), a specialized center for wehrkundliche education (国防 教育 基地, Pinyin Guófáng Jiàoyù Jīdì ) as well as a focus facility for the popularization of space science (航天 知识 科普 教育 基地, Pinyin Hángtiānzhīshì Kēpǔ Jiàoyù Jīdì ).
Administrative structure
Since the municipal reform in 2017, Qiaonan has consisted of a community of residents and 14 administrative villages, each of which consists of several natural villages. The larger community now has the following organizational structure:
Web links
- State Bureau of Land Surveying, Mapping and Geographic Information (Chinese) website
- Qiaonan Space Control Equipment Museum website (Chinese)
Individual evidence
- ↑ 临渭区 桥南 镇 简介. In: linwei.gov.cn. August 10, 2018, accessed January 23, 2019 (Chinese).
- ↑ Mark Wade: More Details for 1975-11-26 in the Encyclopedia Astronautica , accessed on January 24, 2019.
- ↑ 卢伟生: 国家 测绘 地理 信息 局 建 局 60 周年 座谈会 在 京 召开. In: southsurvey.com. September 28, 2016, Retrieved January 25, 2019 (Chinese).
- ↑ 航天 测控 装备 博物馆. In: wnnews.cn. October 27, 2017, Retrieved January 25, 2019 (Chinese).
- ↑ 马 璟: 中国 第一 座 航天 测控 装备 博物馆 开馆. In: chinanews.com. June 27, 2010, accessed January 27, 2019 (Chinese).
- ↑ 桥南 镇. In: stats.gov.cn. Retrieved January 24, 2019 (Chinese).阶 子 村 for the same pronounced 堦 子 村 (one of the old natural villages in the administrative village) is a misspelling.
Coordinates: 34 ° 21 ' N , 109 ° 36' E